The Curious Case of Bonnie Bennett
by TalulaJones
Summary: Sequel to "We're Not Friends".
1. Chapter 1

When they were fifteen, Caroline ditched their last hurrah of summer camp to visit her older cousins in Dallas. Caroline had bragged all the last week of school, how she was going to be spending her summer flirting with quarterbacks at senior parties while Bonnie and Elena were to be stuck making arts and crafts with snot nosed children. But, Caroline's city cousins were eighteen year old twins who weren't too thrilled about sharing their summer before college saddled with fifteen year old, small town Caroline. Not to be discouraged by their babysitting dilemma, the twins had painted Caroline up like a baby hooker, complete with heavy eye shadow and a spandex dress, dragged her to meet friends at a night club and told her to play a mute when the bouncer asked for ID's. Once they were safely behind the velvet rope, her cousins bought her a drink, patted her on the arm and gave her the sage advice to stay put until they came back from the dance floor. In the hour her cousins had left her alone, Caroline met a hot guy who offered her a 'blue dolphin,' which she thought at the time sounded too adorable to be dangerous, and she washed it down with her vodka and sprite , and ten minutes later she couldn't stop clenching her jaw and asking people to give her a hug.

She couldn't remember what had happened after, but was told her cousins found her in VIP, standing on a couch, rubbing her hands over the textured wallpaper with pupils as dilated as a character from a Japanese Anime.

Bonnie and Elena were horrified when she told them the story, however, when Caroline didn't seem traumatized by blacking out in a club, Bonnie had asked her how did she feel while on the drug, and the bubbly blonde answered in the only way she could, "Bonnie, it was like heaven wrapped in hugs."

Bonnie giggles into her pillow, her sticky lips smearing the dry cotton.

_This is heaven wrapped in hugs._

Her limbs stretch out and her spine curves inward like a content cat and she considers calling Caroline to tell her she was sorry for judging her about taking ecstasy and that maybe, just maybe, they could do the drug together, and Caroline wouldn't have to worry about blacking out and mean cousins because she, her best friend would be right there for her.

She opens her closed lids because she thinks she will do just that but her head and arms feel incredibly heavy, like she had fallen asleep in a hot bath, and her lilac walls are swelling and shrinking, and she wonders if they are breathing.

Her scalp is being nuzzled and lips are wandering, catching on the strands of her hair, and she deliberately rubs her thighs together to quell the throbbing when she catches the hint of musky cologne.

"Bonnie."

Her name is being called but it sounds hollow as an echo, and it draws upon a memory of when she was a little kid yelling down a plastic enclosed slide to Elena that she couldn't do it and Elena yelling back up from the other side, "Don't be scared, Bonnie," She was so nervous about sliding down the slide and was shaking her head, getting up from the platform, before Caroline pushed her down the tube.

She smiles and recognizes the memory is indicative of the trio's friendship, her leery of the unknown, Elena softly encouraging and Caroline ripping the Band-Aid off. Her brain plays the reel of their friendship and the images begin to crackle and fade the further it plays into her childhood. Vivid bright colors dim to watery pastels as she recalls her loneliness on the first day of Kindergarten and Elena introducing herself and patting the empty space next to her on the reading carpet with a smile wide and genuine, "Do you want to come play at my house after school?"

"Yes" she replies to the little Elena but feels a hard chest crush her into the mattress as the echo calls her name again, "I said I was far from it", cool breath tickles her ear and she shivers.

_Far from what? _She wonders.

Bonnie's reel is playing the scene when she was eight and wringing her hands under her desk because it was Mother/Daughter day and each kid was excited to go to the front of the class and stand next to their mother and talk about what she did for a living.

She was the only one whose mother was not present.

_Bonnie wants to disappear into her chair and wishes she had pretended to have been sick and stayed at Grams, but then she hears Elena's mother's proud voice, "Elena and Bonnie, please come up girls." Bonnie looks up at Elena's mom, confused, until Elena nudges her desk, grinning and impatient for Bonnie to rise from her seat when Timothy Green loudly voices, "Why is she going to the front? That's not her mom, "and Elena's hair whips around as fast as the words she spits back at Timothy Green, "She's my sister."_

Bonnie curves her body deeper into herself, bringing her knees to her heart, because she can physically feel the loss of her friendship with Elena, "She's my sister," Bonnie repeats and her sweet euphoric high begins to taste bitter. She wishes she could hold to the warmth of that recollection, like she could again intertwine her fingers with her best friend and walk hand in hand to the front of the class and stand with her.

But it slips through her mental grasp and she's left with brown eyes she no longer recognizes, eyes she always sought comfort and confidence from were now distracted and uncertain. Bonnie blamed vampirism. Bonnie blamed Salvatores.

The reel snaps and she feels pressure of unshed tears behind her eyes.

_She's in her Gram's kitchen, the elder woman sits a mug of freshly brewed tea in front of her, and tips Bonnie's chin up with one finger, "Look at me chile, you're a witch Bonnie and with that comes a great responsibility, do you hear me?"_

_"Yes ma'm."_

Did that mean constantly worrying about an absent father? A vampire mother? And a damsel-in-distress prone doppelganger?

Did that mean always sacrificing her happiness and putting herself last forever and ever, amen?

"Relax," her bedside companion coos and brushes their lips on the nape of her neck, making her muscles loosen. She becomes conscious of fingers crawling along the length of her arm, denting her skin with each step, reminding her of the nursery rhyme, 'itsy bitsy spider', and she thinks she should probably slap the creepy-crawler away, because spiders are deadly, and she's sure the spider on her is the deadliest of them all. But then the spider, with its pressured spiny touch, travels down her thigh and it makes her ponder if this particular spider wants to be her friend.

"Open your eyes, Bonnie."

_She is concentrating on what her English teacher is scribbling on the chalkboard as she stares at it from the back of an empty class. "Nostalgia, Ms. Bennett is a Greek compound, 'Nostos' means homecoming and "Algos" means pain. So, Ms. Bennett, knowing the prefix and suffix, what does the word nostalgia mean?"_

_"An ache for home."_

_She preens as she watches the teacher nod approval but the rest of his lesson is drowned out by her father's scratchy voice singing an old Jamaican tune and she's wiping down a coffee table with furniture polish burning her nostrils. Her father is clearing the mantle, and he stops to inspect her work and smiles, "Always take pride in everything you do, baby girl. Whatever it is, whether it's cleaning a toilet bowl or brain surgery, you got to give it your all."_

_"Yes sir."_

"Bonnie."

_"Let's play Ring-A-Round a Rosie," Caroline orders, grabbing Bonnie and Elena's hand. Bonnie's cheeks are red from the sun and perspiration is beading at her temples as she smiles, "Come play with us Grams," she shouts at her grandmother seated on the back porch. "I'm too old to play but I'll sing along," she says and Bonnie wishes she could go back and tell her she was never too old to play. _

_Bonnie's hands are melded to her friends with sweat as she sings in unison, "Ashes, Ashes," they sing higher and higher until their favorite part, "We all fall down!'_

_And this time when she falls back laughing, hands letting go of her best friends, she doesn't land on lush green grass but on a hardwood floor in a grand apartment in St. Petersburg surrounded by unanswered letters all requesting for her to come home. _

The fingertips once trailing in the valley of her waist have now morphed into a broad hand kneading her roughly, rocking her as if its unsure if it wants to push her away or pull her closer. There is a confusion of the want.

_A piano is playing, tinkling like running water and she's observing the contents of her cocktail glass swirl till it creates a tiny hurricane and she's leaden by a sadness she has never felt in her entire eighteen years and she struggles from where this memory comes from, and surmises in her state she has crossed her memories with her imagination of bits of Poe or Byron._

_Her arms are folded underneath her head and her legs are crossed on a down mattress as she rolls her eyes at the sight of a beautiful woman crying at her dressing table. Her tears streak her pale face and Bonnie catches her eyes in the mirror. "You're deranged and I hope someone breaks your heart as you have mine," the beautiful woman says in English with a lilted French accent._

_She looks over at the blonde and yearns for the blue veins, charting her young life along her neck, "Someone already has," she answers in a voice that doesn't sound like hers, it's deeper, darker._

_The image of the beautiful woman scatters like petals of a dandelion and Bonnie's fingers are tangled in Elena's corset strings. Elena angles her head over her shoulder and curls her upper lip, "Remember, no rules," and the wound of betrayal throbs over living out a century based on a lie. But she doesn't get a chance to lament for long because she's running in a fire-place lit living room and knocks over a small decorative vase on a mahogany table and she quickly hides under it until a raven haired woman with luminous blues eyes - Bonnie has seen before but can't quite place - coaxes her out and hugs her close, "When your father comes home, I want you to run over to the Lockwood's, okay, sweetie?," her delicate hands brushing away a lock of hair that has fallen in her face._

"Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie," the echo has become a moan.

_She forgets to run to the Lockwood's because Stefan is now there, but he's all of five, and skipping in his dark gray shorts and matching vest as they race to a rope swing at the top of hill. She wins but Stefan's smile doesn't disappear, it brightens, and she gives up the swing to him and says, "You can go first, I'll push you."_

_Then she sees herself, with her brassy brown curls piled atop her head and her neck stretched under her own mouth, and she tingles, not only with the spacey sensation of seeing oneself outside of oneself, but with a gnawing hunger unlike any craving she has known before, and she whispers, "What I'm trying to say Judgy, is I hope one day I do something for you to stop hating me, because I don't hate you. Far from it."_

_"Far from it."_

_"Far from it."_

_"Far from it."_

The words are flashcards flipping behind her closed lids and Bonnie realizes these images aren't a part of her imagination or an excerpt from a romantic poem but they belong to the broad hand splayed over her quivering stomach.

She gasps and jolts upright from her pillow to see candles burned down to nubs, scattered around the carpet, and she coughs and waves her hand to clear the myrrh filled smoke that has created a thick smog in her bedroom. She moves her mouth to speak to the body lying next to her but her mouth smacks with a sticky substance and she brings her fingers to the corner of her lips and looks down to see blood. _Blood?_

And all of a sudden, she is so very aware of the heavy arm wrapped around her waist and who it belongs to.

"Damon?" she asks like maybe it wasn't him.

The distinctive male body inches closer and makes a pillow muffled noise that sounds like, "Are you okay?"

Bonnie removes Damon's hand from her person and hops from the bed. She didn't know why she was acting so peculiar; she was the one who had asked for the blood.

And as she draws the curtains and opens her window to let the cold air rush in, she tells herself she did this for Elena, but it does nothing for her anxiety.

"I'm fine," She snaps.

Damon raises his upper body from the bed and runs his fingers over his face in annoyance and when he catches Bonnie staring at him, he winks at her, and Bonnie ruminates over when she has ever, in the history of her life, had her heart flutter with anything but fear and anger around Damon.

The vampire swings his legs to the floor, his impeccably creased button-down is wrinkled and his dark hair, the color of a crow, is tousled and his bright blue eyes are narrow as if the lids were too heavy for him to open wide. And even though she knows fully well he is a vampire and completely in control of his faculties at all times, seeing him act as if he is just as affected as she is by the blood exchange made her want to be vicious. Because she knew once he stepped one foot out of her room, it wouldn't mean anything to him, and it made her mad because his words of wanting to be given a chance to redeem himself meant so much to her.

His fingers are doing whatever they want again and they are rubbing her shoulders, "Did it work?" His whisper is much too close to her ear.

Bonnie squirms under the awkward stab at familiarity, "I don't know," wanting him to leave so she can be alone to analyze what the hell happened when she ingested his blood.

He snorts and reaches for the leather jacket draped over her desk chair, "Do you feel different?"

_Yes._

"No."

Bonnie escorts him to the front door and doesn't offer a 'thank you' or a 'good-bye', and she's all too relieved when he follows her lead and drives away without a word.

She quickly climbs the stairs to throw away her ruined sheets and leaves the window open to shoo out the lingering memory. She blares pop music, hoping to occupy her thoughts with lyrics of nights filled with wanton abandonment, something she has never experienced, and hadn't given much thought about, but she's aware of each line while she sings along in her scolding shower. She dresses in another pair of pajamas that are too big for her and lies down only to toss and turn for an hour because she can still smell him.

Bonnie is tired but she gets up and replaces bed sheets and swaps pillowcases, and even spritzes lavender perfume into the air, but when she lies down in an attempt to rest for the second time that evening, she groans because she figures out that it isn't her sheets, or her room, but it is her that carries his scent.

BBBBBBBB

"Aren't you like, supposed to be at school? Is it a holiday or something? "Lucy arches a manicured brow at her younger cousin while sipping her trendy coffee.

Bonnie locks the front door to her home behind them, "I skipped. I don't feel well," she informs, pulling out her red knit cap from her coat pocket.

Every once in a while Bonnie was glad she didn't have a parent breathing down her neck, like today when she had to call her school and pretend to be sick, she didn't also have to put on the theatrics of holding a thermometer under warm water or doubling over, grabbing her stomach, feigning a stomach virus only for them to call her out on her lie and ask what was the real problem. Because she was pretty sure it wouldn't have gone over well, telling her Dad she was too exhausted to go to school because she was up all night from the bad batch of vampire blood she drank.

She tried to sleep, but every time she closed her lids, Damon was there with her, still in her bed, taking up residence in her head with his frayed memories and her desperately dangling from their ends, unwillingly understanding who he was, while she tied each one together so she wouldn't slip and fall into a darkness where she believed Damon hid from them each day.

Lucy shuffles her feet backward from Bonnie like the girl had announced she had the bubonic plague, "What's wrong with you?" She asks, twisting her mouth in disgust.

Bonnie runs her hand over unruly bangs to tuck under the cap, "I'm not sick but I'm not," her cheeks fill with air that she blows out of frustration because her stupid hair won't stay out of her eyes and she doesn't know how to explain how she woke up feeling like she needed to collect on a debt from the world, she doesn't think she can convey to Lucy what she feels because she is certain the emotions don't belong to her, have never belonged to her, they are borrowed and are the wrong color and fit too snug in places, cutting off her circulation at the pulse and neck. "I'm not myself," she says as more of a question with the small space between her brows crinkling, "But the good things is, I think I have my powers back."

"You think or you know?" Lucy asks, following Bonnie off the concrete porch, her monogrammed leather bag swinging on her arm.

Bonnie hadn't planned on calling Lucy, what she had planned on was a day filled with judge shows and claims of who was the father playing in the background while she frantically searched for an explanation in the grimoire on what happens when a vampire and a witch share blood, but when she slammed the book closed, cursing the name Salvatore, she looked around the living room to see all the candles had lit.

Lucy reaches for the handle of the passenger side door of Bonnie's Prius and sees Bonnie has no intention of driving anywhere as she watches her cousin jerk her head both ways to check for oncoming traffic before crossing the street.

"Where are you going?" Lucy yells out to her, annoyed that she has to walk anymore then she has to in her stiletto boots.

"Once again, the Salvatores' prove they have no clue how magic works and the cure needs more than a witch simply reciting words, I need to pick up some books from Grams to research what else I need," She says to her cousin who is trying to keep up with her steps into the clearing in the woods but Bonnie has the advantage of wearing Converses, "I thought we could take a walk through the woods to her house and I could test out my powers."

Twigs snap under Lucy's boots as she stops her trudge abruptly, "You do realize it's like thirty degrees."

Bonnie halts her steps and looks around at the barren, ashen trees, pointing their cold bony limbs upward to a drab and lifeless sky. She offers Lucy a weak smile, "We are witches, we love nature, remember?" She says her each word as a huff of white air.

Lucy straightens her earmuffs over her ears, "You are just dying to get back to helping Princess Elena"

Bonnie rolls her eyes, tramping along the worn path, "Don't call her that," She says not bothering to wait for Lucy to catch up or respond, "I have the power to help the ones I love, I can't sit back and watch my family suffer knowing I can protect them and finding this cure is bigger than just helping Elena, it will help my mom, and anyone else who might want to take it," She adds the last part of anyone else wanting to cure themselves of vampirism to better state her case but she knows her cousin is not convinced and she's not sure she's convinced herself either, because really the cure was her chance to right two wrongs , to have her sister back as she was intended to be, as a human, and to prove to her mother how important it was for her to have a relationship with her, by giving her her humanity back.

Lucy doesn't take the bait. "I'm not even going to start on Abby, Bonnie because we both know she's a sensitive topic for you," Lucy continues unafraid by the daggers Bonnie is throwing at her with her eyes, "Which one was it?"

"Which one what?" Bonnie asks, feeling her cheeks betray her by growing warm.

"Don't play dumb, was it Stefan or Damon, please say Stefan," Lucy pleads with a hope Bonnie hates to have to dash by uttering one name.

Bonnie leans against one of the thin trees and folds her arms across her chest, "Damon," she says softly with the sound of his name traveling through her nerves which she felt were turned inside out, raw and exposed to the elements.

Lucy shakes her head and takes a sip of her coffee, "So, he gave it to you huh?

Bonnie replays Lucy's questions as she digs the tip of her rubber sole into the damp earth but she doesn't know why they make her angry. What was she supposed to do? He was there and she wanted to get her powers back, she didn't know she was going to have to live and breathe inside his damn memories. The blood spell was only supposed to be a boost not to give her a glimpse of a fiend's life and now she was stuck wading in a murky ocean of Damon's emotions that was making her seasick. It wasn't like Lucy was telling her of any other way to heal besides waiting on spring and that's when the questions resonate, "Wait a minute!" She waves a finger in the air, pointing it at her cousin," You knew vampire blood would get my powers back all this time and you never told me?" Bonnie could hear her voice becoming shrill.

"I was hoping you wouldn't take the easy way out," Lucy levels before perching herself on a collapsed tree.

Bonnie slid the knit cap from her head because she feels overheated, like she is actually producing steam from her scalp, "Next time don't leave out information Lucy, tell me everything and let me decide what's best for me, okay?"

Lucy nods and occupies herself with finishing off her coffee.

Bonnie closes her eyes and is accosted by a naïve grin of a fresh face in Confederate grey and her own heart squeezes.

She flashes her eyes open and turns to the elder witch, "How long will it last? She needs a timeframe on how long she will have to endure Damon's pictures.

"Your powers are good to go now, it'll last as long as you don't overextend yourself again," She says, placing the empty cup on the dirt ground.

Bonnie narrows her eyes at her cousin because of her vague response; she thinks she is holding out on her again and she won't tolerate it, "That's great Lucy, but what about seeing the vamp's memories and feeling their emotions, how long am I going to have those?"

Lucy does the unthinkable and wrinkles her brow," Bonnie. What. Did. You. Do?" She spells out, leaves crunching as she comes to place her leather gloved hands on Bonnie's shoulders.

Bonnie looks up at her cousin, feeling all of her eighteen years and 5'2 height, "I did the spell with the blood sharing," She blurts like that piece of information should make Lucy back off but it doesn't, it only makes her cousin's mouth fall open and Bonnie's stomach drop.

"You shared blood with him!? And did a spell?!" Lucy shakes Bonnie against the tree with each question," What possessed you to do that? Which spell did you use?"

Bonnie thinks about what did possess her because she didn't want to share her blood, but a certain conniving vampire who didn't believe on doing anything without something in return convinced her to give up her blood and now she was paying the price of listening to the devil.

Bonnie ducks under Lucy and pushes her hands out in front of her because she can't take what Lucy is telling her, "Why are you speaking like there's more than one spell for vampire blood?"

Leather gloves fly to cover Lucy's mouth, "Oh my god Bonnie, which one did you use?"

"The only one I saw under the benefits of vampire blood!," Bonnie yells throwing her hands up above her head.

"This is why I tell you all the time you have to stop picking and choosing which spells to read and start from the beginning, the book was created according to the level the witch is progressing, skipping to the back insults your lineage. Why didn't you consult me first? Vampire blood might have helped you but you don't know even know what you've created," Lucy chastises with her hand on her hip.

Bonnie knows Lucy is right, and if this were taking place yesterday then Bonnie would have acknowledged she was wrong and even promise to Lucy she would consult her more, but not today. Today she wants to roll her eyes at her cousin and walk off, and throw in telling her how can she take her serious when she shows the same enthusiasm for a sample sale at Tory Burch as she does at attending a Sabbat, but she does neither, because neither reaction feels like her.

"If you tell me that I'm bonded to Damon, then, please kill me now," Bonnie says, opening her jacket to allow her cousin to take the very life from her body. She's being dramatic but this was Damon they were talking about.

Lucy gives a half-hearted laugh, "You say you can see his memories and stuff, you feel like you may know what he feels?"

Bonnie nods while buttoning her jacket.

"Sounds like whatever you did, you are getting to have a taste of what's it like to be Damon Salvatore," Lucy informs solemnly, bringing in her little cousin for a hug.

"Yay," Bonnie groans as her shoulders slump against Lucy, "Does that mean I am going to start being a dick and trying to have sex with anything that moves?"

Lucy laughs, "Probably."

They continue on to Gram's house in silence before Bonnie blurts, "Did you do something similar to this," She pauses wondering if she should even bring her up, "With Katherine?"

"Similar," she confirms, "And those side effects did wear off eventually," Lucy stresses flipping her hair from her shoulder and not offering a word more.

They never talk about Katherine. Bonnie understood that Lucy wasn't ready to reveal all in regards to her tumultuous relationship with the vampire, but Bonnie suspected their relationship was more than just a vampire using a witch for her magic.

"It'll wear off?" Bonnie chimes, happy to hear a bright side, "Then all I have to do is wait out being a mini Damon for a while, that's a somewhat small price to pay to help my friend if you ask me," She says, smiling at her cousin.

Lucy snorts, "For Elena's sake I hope she returns the favor," she remarks to Bonnie who continues to smile like she didn't hear a word she said. Lucy shakes her head because there was no reasoning with Bonnie when it came to Elena. She sighs deeply in defeat and shrugs, "Well before we go any further, let's see if ingesting that asshole's blood was worth it."

Bonnie's upper lip quirks and Lucy is reminded of a certain Salvatore as Bonnie snaps her fingers and uproots a tree.

BBBBBBBB

Lucy had hit the road before the five o' clock traffic and Bonnie sat with her knees tucked under her chin, gazing out her living room's bay window, during those lonely hours when the sun positions itself for rest and people rush home after a hard day to do the same.

At Gram's, she and Lucy turned the empty home upside down, tearing through every book to learn Bonnie and Damon's blood sharing had created an empathy bond, Bonnie was now privy to the vampire's past and the dark inner-workings of his soul. When Bonnie suggested they try a reversal spell, Lucy reminded her being impulsive with her magic is how she got herself into this predicament, and it would only last for a month or so, and that earlier that day she was singing a different tune about it being a small price to play, blah.. blah..blah.. Bonnie blocked out the rest of her gloating because if she would have listened to any more all she saw was her fist meeting her cousin's face and she stopped herself to ponder if that emotion belonged to her or Damon?

How was she going to keep her emotions separate from him? Maybe she could lock herself in a room and avoid all contact outside of school until she was just good ole' Bonnie Bennett, but the thought of spending a month cooped up in the house made her want to stick her head in the oven.

That definitely belonged to Damon, she thought.

She was about to drag her behind up the stairs when her dad surprised her by coming home a week early and wanting to treat his baby girl to dinner at the grill.

Be ready in an hour," he said, kissing her on the forehead so she could run up and change.

She showers, dresses and is ready and waiting by the door before her father. Was she really this excited to go to the grill? She flings her body backwards onto the couch and busies herself with her phone while she waits. There are missed texts from Caroline and Jeremy wondering why she wasn't at school, she texts Jeremy she'll be back tomorrow and she responds to Caroline's with, 'Going to grill with my dad, but let's talk tonight? I think we are overdue on a girls night out, what do you think?'

Bonnie immediately feels the phone buzz back but she doesn't bother with it because her dad is ready to go.

"How was school?" Her father asks while she rolls down the car window despite the cold weather.

She avoids his question by asking, "How much cologne did you put on, Daddy?"

She was choking on Aqua Velva.

Her father frowns and lifts his collar to his nostril for a sniff, "I thought you liked my cologne? You've never said anything before."

Bonnie had never liked her father's cologne but she also never said anything about it because the man had worn it since her birth so he obviously loved it. She composes herself by rolling up the window, and finds an out by divulging some truth, "I didn't go to school today because I didn't feel good, I think the cologne is bothering me because I'm not a hundred percent yet."

Her father extends his calloused hand to press against Bonnie's forehead, "You don't have a fever. After I drop you off from dinner, be sure to put on socks and rub some Vicks-salve on your chest," he orders.

It's always been this way. Bonnie tells him what she is doing or will do and he never questions her, because she has always been responsible, unlike other teens, and although she is glad she didn't have to deal with him in the morning, at that moment, she wants him to ask her more questions, catch her in her lie, or get mad at her for not calling him to tell him she was staying home, anything other than just taking her word.

"You're dropping me off? Jackie's not joining us?"

Jackie was her Dad's too young for him girlfriend, who was genuinely sweet, even though she was only ten years Bonnie's senior and sometimes behaved as if she were Bonnie's step-mother.

"Not for dinner, it's just you and me," He says like he deserves a cookie, "She thought I should spend more father/daughter time with you since you'll be leaving me for college soon."

_I'm glad someone reminds you since Gram's is gone._

Bonnie takes a deep breath and reasons that she knows her father loves her, he just wasn't very good at the taking care of her part, and she has always been aware of this ever since she was a kid, she shouldn't be bothered by it anymore. It wasn't his fault he didn't know how to brush her hair into ponytails before school or how to pack her sandwiches without the crust. Most fathers, she reasoned, didn't know do that stuff. Besides, she would be gone to California soon and she didn't want to spend her last days living at home digging up things she felt she had long buried.

Her father was a good man, he wasn't perfect, but she thinks about Damon's father in comparison to hers and she believes she lucked out.

The doorbell chimes as they enter the grill which is sweltering from the heater and the many mouths opening to talk and eat. Her dad kisses the top of her head, "Grab us a table, I'ma go freshen up," he says, leaving to the men's restroom."

She spots an empty booth and sheds her coat and scarf as she walks toward the back wall through the crowded restaurant. The batting in the old leather cushion falls flat under her and she contemplates taking off her sweater because she is burning up. A family, seated a booth over from her, orders chili and Bonnie watches the middle-aged father wipe the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand after each bite and she can't take it anymore. She pulls the sweater over her head and feels only a bit of cooler in just her tank top.

She quickly checks herself out in the brushed metal of the napkin dispenser thinking maybe she was really coming down with something as she smoothes down her curls and glides a tube of cherry chap stick over her lips.

Bonnie scans the room for any familiar faces and doesn't see anyone particular worth impressing and that's when she sees him, clad in a black t-shirt with his back hunched over the bar, stools to the left and right of him vacant, and empty glasses littered around him.

The waiter sets two glasses of water on the table and Bonnie gulps down both before her Dad slides into the booth.

"What are you gonna get baby girl?"

She doesn't bother with the plastic menu because she knows it by heart and she's too young to order what she really wants which is a glass of something flammable.

"I'll have the classic and a chocolate shake."

Her dad smiles, "The same as me".

Bonnie stands and places her hand on her father's shoulder, "Dad, order for us, I see a, um, friend of uh, Elena's up there," She says and her Dad looks back to see what friend she is referring to. He doesn't see any teenagers where Bonnie is headed and he almost opens his mouth to protest when he notices the lone man at the end of the bar.

"Okay," He settles with himself because his daughter knows best.

She doesn't know why but each step she takes down the worn aisle toward Damon feels like they are triggering the restaurant's heater to turn ten degrees hotter and if her Dad wasn't in the same room, Bonnie thinks she would embarrass herself by taking off her top as well.

Piercing blue eyes casually glance over their shoulder and hone in on the likes of Bonnie Bennett showing off butterscotch skin in a tight black tank top in the dead of winter.

Damon thinks Bonnie must be a vampire too.

He doesn't turn away, but offers her a cursory nod, and Bonnie's breath is caught in her throat because she doesn't see him, but his mother telling her it's okay that she broke an heirloom but that she needs to run over to the Lockwood's before her Dad comes home and Bonnie wonders how many times his mother had to protect him before she died.

He smells like a distillery and he turns his head away once she is close enough to touch him, if one day she ever chose to do such a thing.

"Something making you hot, Bennett?" He asks before shooting the contents of his glass and slamming it on to the bar.

Her mouth waters and she picks a fight with herself for allowing herself to feel compassion for Damon, there were lots of people in the world who had horrible things happen to them and they didn't turn into monsters, why should he be given a pass?

She crosses her arms under her breasts and ignores his question, "I'm here with my dad, I saw you over here and thought it would be rude if I didn't say hello."

Damon snorts and mortifies her by acknowledging her staring father by raising his drink to him. "I smelled you come in," he says, his voice low as he pours another round.

Bonnie has been immersed in Damon's memories for the last 24 hours but the memories she's seen so far have been mostly of his human life and bits and pieces of his obsession over Katherine, she hasn't reached the full expand of his life as a vampire and although she's worried about seeing his descent, his familial break with his brother and his fixation with her best friend, what she is scared to death of is what she will find when the memories come to her, she didn't want to re-live the times he hurt her and feel his satisfaction; she didn't want to hate him more than she already did.

She fidgets, digs her nails into her arm, "I thought I'd go to the boardinghouse tomorrow and speak with you and Stefan about the cure."

"Oh?"

She inhales his musky cologne and speculates her blood must be scented with it, "I know Stefan thinks this spell is it but we are going to need to obtain a few things in order for it to work, I need to get back to my dad, so I won't go into detail here, but, tomorrow"?

"Whatever works for you, Witchy."

"Okay then," She says finding the courage to say what she wants because his back is turned, "Look," She loosens her grip on her arms, "I know I ran you out of my house the other night, so I never got to tell you thank you… for doing what you did."

Damon twirls the glass around in his hand, taking his time like he doesn't understand her words and is waiting for her to translate before he takes another sip and mutters, "You're welcome."

He looks over at a flat screen showing a basketball game he doesn't care about as he senses Bonnie anxiously step closer to him then back, and he wants her to just take a damn seat next to him already and share a drink while 'Dad of the Year' waits, because he's had a long day and he was going to have an even longer night and making Judgy smile was one of the few things he could think of that might turn it all around, but he can feel how unsure she is of whether she wants to occupy one of the stools next to him, and he's tired of people being unsure, so he makes the decision for her by abruptly turning to her and cocking an eyebrow, "Is that it?" He asks as if he just told her to 'get lost'.

Bonnie flinches out of her daze, "Yeah," she nods, "That's it."

She finds herself back at the booth with her father, listening to her dad prattle off about Elena needing to pick better friends and how his sales were soaring. She nods and smiles when she thinks she's supposed to, but her mind is elsewhere, it is busy burning a hole into the skull of the vampire still sitting at the bar.

Her phone vibrates and for a split second she thinks it's from him. Saying what? She didn't know, maybe asking her to come back, because she was positive she felt his want for her to stay, or was that her? She quickly stops herself from analyzing Damon's feelings any further because when she finally reads the text it's from Elena.

**"Hey I know we haven't talked in a while, but I can't find Damon and Stefan isn't much help right now. Caroline said you were at the grill, is he there?"**

She thinks about interrupting her time with her father again to approach the vampire and make his evening by telling him Elena was looking for him, but she looks up to see him stand and throw down a few bills on the bar without even a wave good-bye.

Bonnie sighs and thumbs her reply back to Elena.

**'You just missed him.'**


	2. Chapter 2

The tang of pennies permeates the back of Damon's throat, causing his glands to constrict and his insides to eat at him in a need for blood. He presses a latex-gloved finger into the spongy, mangled flesh wound of a fresh corpse, staining the clear glove red and he knows he won't make it long without feeding. He instantly decides once he is done playing CSI with Sheriff Forbes in the hospital morgue, he will request she find a Resident working the night shift for him to compel to fetch several blood bags for him in exchange for his supernatural expertise. She will be sickened of course, but he doesn't care. Besides, it was she who had interrupted his evening of inebriation where he could have bar-hopped until he found a willing snack so he could come to determine if neckline gashes found on a trio of female campers in the woods were from vampires.

Damon steadies the lolling head of one of the corpses, this one a straw-berry blonde with cheeks still flush in spite of her recent acquaintance with death, and Damon almost feels sorry for the girl.

Didn't they know the woods belonged to the dark?

And he wasn't thinking of the supernatural because even in his human life the woods of Mystic Falls were plagued with heinous happenings. It's where escaped slaves were hunted and killed, where women were taken and raped and unsuspecting travelers were robbed and mutilated. It was humans, not supernaturals, who created the lore of evil coming out at nightfall in the woods of Mystic Falls, but that fact was shamefully hidden and long forgotten by its current populace.

The fluorescent overhead light buzzes and casts unflattering shadows under the wrinkles of Sheriff Forbes's face and Damon stares thinking Caroline should be kissing his ass every day that it was his blood that saved her from middle age. His stare causes Elizabeth Forbes to smile awkwardly at him, even though there is a corpse separating them on its steel bed, because she's still a woman, and he's still, well, hot.

She reminds herself who she is and asks with that voice reserved for Law Enforcement, "What's the verdict, Salvatore? Vampire?"

Damon knows that no self-respecting vampire would leave a kill with a drop of blood. He shakes his head and walks over to the brunette of the trio and inspects her wound, "Nope," he pops the 'p' of his one word answer and tilts the girl's neck back and a stream of blood seeps out, "Too much blood left; it's a shame really for someone to be this wasteful when there are starving vampires in Africa."

Sheriff Forbes doesn't blink; she is used to Damon's humor.

Damon runs his hands over the corpse's frame, lifting up limbs, searching for additional bites, "Werewolves," he concludes while continuing with his un-trained autopsy and admitting to his self that he likes playing detective, he was good at it and it broke up the monotony of his day to day existence. And to be honest, even though he would have to have his meal come from a plastic bag instead of a sexy co-ed, he was a tiny bit grateful for the interruption, because it wasn't like he was doing anything exciting. He was at the grill, all alone, nursing his ego after a fight with Stefan over their time-worn dilemma - Elena. The problem was Stefan never learned how to share, and he expected Damon to fulfill on the promise he made to disappear once Elena made a choice, which she did before she did the foolish thing of drowning and coming back as a vampire. Now that she was among the blood-sucking undead, she needed him and he wanted to stick around to help her transition even if he had hopes his effort would convince her of her folly of picking Saint Stefan.

Damon lifts the woman's right wrist and raises a brow at the small ink stamp of a Falcon tattooed across the veins.

"They all have that tattoo," Sheriff Forbes informs him, raising the wrist of the strawberry-blonde one, "And in the same place too; I thought you would be able to tell me what the tattoo means, if anything."

Damon grimaces at Elizabeth, "Do I look like a walking encyclopedia of weird shit to you?" Damon rolls off a latex glove and pulls his iPhone from his jean pocket. "I'm also not big on tats, never wanted to mar something this beautiful," he says with a wink at the sheriff who looks like she wants to gag, "But don't worry, I have someone who will know," He smiles while snapping a photo.

BBBBBBBB

Damon drives his vintage Camaro into the planned subdivision, the loud engine disturbing the quiet behind the gates of its neo-classical houses, with their faux pillars and sweeping drive-ways. He twists his mouth in revulsion because he knows time passing hasn't changed the hearts of these Mystic Falls residents. They were still aspiring to have all the faults of the rich. He remembers from his human life the same area being occupied by Yeoman farmers, the bourgeoisie of his time, who loathed a rich planter's son like him, all the while envying to become exactly what they hated.

He turns down a tree-lined block, leading him to an older part of the subdivision, where the homes don't separate themselves by iron-wrought gates and look lived-in and welcoming as he passes up porch light's belonging to The Gilberts and The Forbeses.

The roar of the engine dies and a pair of keys clang against the dashboard, then there is no noise other than the whistle of wind through the crack of his window and the drone of Bonnie's heartbeat.

He's parked outside her home, wanting to talk to her, but it's three in the morning and she's sleeping like every other soul on her street.

His head falls back over the leather headrest as he listens to the consistent thump and his mind wanders, hypnotized by the beat of the witches' heart. He begins to think of silly things, like if the town knew how crucial it was for that particular heart to beat regularly in order for them to sleep peacefully at night. He exhales air he doesn't breathe as he thinks about the many three a.m. calls he made to her in the past, when things unraveled and he would pull up to this exact curb, and she would be waiting at the edge of the driveway, in thrown on at-the-last-minute jeans and shirt, holding her ancestral cookbook to her chest.

He fingers the phone in his lap, itching to speed-dial Bonnie but he's apprehensive, he thinks she'll send it to voicemail like all the other calls. He knows he was only able to reach her yesterday because he provoked her with breaking into her cousin's apartment and showing up on her porch using the magic words, "For Elena."

Asking for anything he needed from her outside of saving her best friend, he could forget. She wasn't like the rest of the Scooby gang who he eventually wore down with his bawdy charm. She only tolerated him once he proved he could be better. But after Abby, in spite of expressing regret, he deduces she will never tolerate him again.

And it's the 'never' he finds hard to swallow, especially since the heady scent of match sticks being struck is clinging to him, the smell of magic, and he remembers her warmth spooned against him, sucking his blood to heal herself. And even though she bum-rushed his ass out the door after their blood swap, the truth remains she had trusted him when it counted the most and he wants to hold on to that.

He notices her father's sedan is missing per usual, and he toys with the death wish of sneaking into her bedroom as he drums his fingers on the steering wheel. He pictures himself flipping on her bedroom light and pinning her down by her shoulders and demanding to know why it was impossible for her to take a seat next to him for a few lousy minutes, or how hard is it really for her to answer the damn phone when she sees its him or why couldn't she understand that he's so fucking unbelievably sorry for disappointing her that he doesn't even hope for the camaraderie they had before.

He opens his door, his boot meeting the pavement and reality smacks him across his head, because if he does climb up the oak tree with its branches scraping against her bedroom window, she will fry his brain to where his most impressive talent is to drool.

The witch doesn't want anything to do with him and Damon couldn't blame her but it doesn't stop him from being upset with her for only seeing everything at face value and at his self for not recognizing when it was time to cut his losses.

It was his fault actually, for wanting the respect of the one person whose backbone was incapable of bending.

He starts the engine and has intentions on driving home when the inside of his car is flooded with light from a car parking behind him.

Red veins etch from the peak of his cheekbones to his eyes, his mind races to the dead girls at the morgue, and he's stretching his neck to see a figure walking around their vehicle in his rear-view mirror, and he has a hand wrapped around the door handle, ready to fly out and open up the throat of whoever dared to harm the witch. But headlights snap off, and he's surrounded by darkness again as a fist knocks against the passenger window and doe-eyes follow to peek into the glass.

Damon is tingling from anticipating a kill while he and Elena blink rapidly, comprehending that they are looking at one another.

"Damon what are you doing here?" her face is open with concern and relief, "I've been looking for you everywhere," she says, her voice obfuscated by the window.

He leans to unlock the passenger door, "No one likes a stalker, Elena," he teases, smiling up at the doppelganger.

Elena rolls her head and he thinks she'll follow the gesture with an "oh brother," as his car door creaks and she slides onto leather.

She directs her hand and his attention to Bonnie's door, "Isn't that what you are doing?"

That's exactly what he was doing and her calling him out makes him balk, "Can't a vampire wait outside a witch's house at three in the morning without the third degree? He takes his iPhone from his lap and thumbs to the folder titled 'Witch,' to thrust into Elena's smug face, "Some girls were killed tonight, they all had this creepy tattoo and I thought it was right up Bennett's alley."

Elena is silent as she holds the phone in her hands and scrolls over three pictures of the identical stamp on different skin tones.

"How long are you and Judgy going to go not talking to one another because I think you guys' issues are spilling over into Scooby business," He states, blaming Bonnie's reluctance to help him on their falling out.

She whips her face towards him, lashes bowed with sadness, and he back tracks his jab and asks softly, "Why are you two fighting?"

"I could ask the same thing about you and Stefan," She says.

"We're always fighting, " he snorts, "Stefan and I only hear each other when we are beating each other over the head; you think we're being dysfunctional, when he and I are relieved to finally talk," he quips thinking of the lamps and vases broken in the drawing room. He will lament over their irreparable value tomorrow in the light of day.

Elena sighs, "She gave me an aneurysm," her voice raspier than usual from holding off an onslaught of tears, "I was feeding from Matt and I got out of control and…and…"she stammers and doesn't finish because Damon stops her by wrapping a firm hand over her shoulder.

Her shoulders shake and Damon's heart breaks.

"Hey, hey," he coos, massaging her neck in his hand, "Look at me, "he commands. Her chin falls to her shoulder and he can see tears trapped in her thick lashes and he thinks she has never looked more beautiful, "You don't have to be ashamed of what you are Elena, you are learning how to feed properly, it was an accident."

She bobs her head and her hairs swings with it.

"But," her breathy voice cracks, "You know how she feels about vampires and I don't know if she'll be able to forgive me."

If there was one thing Damon knew for sure it was that Bonnie loved Elena, he knew it as sure as he knew the earth was round, hell it was only because of that love he and Stefan were even allowed to stay in Mystic Falls.

He rubs circles into her back, "She loves you, Elena. She'll forgive you."

Judgy's hatred for blood suckers might have been black and white but it had seemed to muddle to gray with her best friends turning into vampires, and he knew the only thing more powerful than the witch's judgment was her capacity for love.

Elena's face is hidden by her curtain of chestnut strands and her chin is cradled in her palm by her elbow on the window. She's gazing at Bonnie's house, 'I miss her."

Damon considers Elena's three little words and he would agree, but that would be unsheathing a vulnerability he's not ready to reveal, not even to the woman he loves.

"Come on, I'll follow you home," he says, patting her thigh, "I need some rest before I have to get up and face McBroody," he quips and Elena smiles.

"You sure you want to go home?" She asks like it might not be a good idea for him to go back to the boarding house.

Damon furrows his brow and his mouth flies open, "I'm not scared of Stefan and I have never slept on a couch that didn't belong to me and I won't start now," He says suggestively.

She steps out the car and bends down, her face still raw from crying, "You won't have to sleep on the couch," She says and he's suddenly intrigued by her offer even if he's positive she meant him not sleeping on the couch was him crashing in his dead best friend's bed. But that doesn't stop him from saying, "Be prepared, I sleep in the nude," he informs, wagging his brows.

She laughs and he's reminded of how she continuously stuns him being so unlike Katherine despite sharing her face.

She leans on the door frame, "I know what you promised Stefan, Damon," She lingers, swaying the door back and forth as he waits for her to make up her mind on what she wants to say, and then perplexes him by extending her open hand back into the car, "I don't want you to go."

He smirks because he doesn't know the customary response to getting something you always wanted, but he reaches for her hand, and presses his palm into hers, and for a brief moment he's convinced he doesn't need Judgy's respect if Elena continues to hold his hand and never lets it go.

BBBBBBBB

_Talbot Lockwood was going on and on about it being time for Damon to be with a girl, and how it wasn't fitting for a man of nineteen to haven't known a woman in the biblical sense by now._

_"You're taking me to a house of ill repute?" Damon asked, with his body rocking back and forth on top of his horse as they leisurely rode by moonlight into town._

_Damon shouldn't have been shocked, it was expected from Talbot. He had known his rambunctious counterpart since he could walk and if it wasn't for their age then they wouldn't have had anything in common, and both young men were better for not having let something silly as shared interests stop them from being the best of friends._

_"You sound like an old hen, Salvatore," Talbot chided, shaking his thick head at his peculiar friend, "Are you taking me to a house of ill repute," He mocked Damon in a feminine voice, and threw his hand about like he was waving a handkerchief, "We are going to a whore-house, Virginia's finest whorehouse to be correct." _

_Damon wasn't happy, he was dressed for a respectable calling, with a ironed shirt and waistcoat, a felt hat and polished boots because Talbot told him there was someone important for him to meet. He foolishly thought it was a prospector since his friend knew he wanted to break out on his own by selling his mother's land and move he and Stefan out west somewhere, one of those territories where people went to start over. Learning it was a brothel they were heading towards made him nervous, if word got back to Giuseppe he was in one, it would only give the man one more reason to hate him. _

_Crickets serenaded their ride and Damon thought about bowing out of the evening to be with his bedside books. _

_"Are you holding out for your wedding night with Mary Forbes?_

_Damon bit the inside of his mouth as he pictured the kind pale grey eyes of his shy betrothed, who his father had hand-picked for him without his consent and he wished Talbot hadn't brought her up. _

_"You are!" Talbot shook from laughter and slapped his thigh, "Just think of this as practice so you'll be good at it when the time comes," He said, reigning in his horse._

_Virginia's Finest turned out to be no more than a clapboard house with peeling white paint and Damon gave Talbot a look in question if they were at the right address and Talbot nodded and swung his legs from around his horse to tie the animal to a wooden post. Damon followed and removed his hat while they waited for someone to answer Talbot's secret knock at the door. He fiddled with the brim, listening to the house creak from the swell of bodies along with a rancorous pounding of piano keys coupled with laughter that floated from the open windows. He couldn't lie, he was intrigued by what awaited behind the door, but he had a palpable fear of Giuseppe Salvatore, and he didn't want to risk his wrath. He placed his hand on Talbot's shoulder, "I'm gonna go back."_

_Talbot's face fell, "Damon you can't be scared of him for the rest of your life."_

_This was the constant struggle; Damon wanting to please his cold-hearted father and Talbot trying to convince him not to give a damn._

_The heavy door swung open and a grown woman with bright red curls welcomed them in lace knickers and a corset showing more cleavage than Damon had ever seen in his dreams. Talbot patted his back and smiled wide, "We came to the party; we might as well have some fun."_

_Talbot's words rang in another memory, years later, one where Damon was caked up to his eyeballs in dried blood and mud, and his insides rattled from a bout of dysentery. The boys had lost their company, were stuck behind enemy lines in the Northern Virginian woods, and Damon was discombobulated by his sickness. He couldn't walk more than a few feet with his chin off his chest, which made him no good to combat what awaited them if they dared the crossing over the scorched hill into the Confederacy. _

_"At Nightfall," Damon hacked, hopelessly leaning himself up with one hand against a tree before crumbling to his knees on the dirt ground._

_"You won't make it another day," Talbot spat as he paced back and forth. Damon wanted to sleep so he closed his eyes and was awakened by a slap and the dark brown eyes of his friend who was crouched in front of him._

_"We gonna make a run for it right now, Salvatore." _

_Damon shook his head and Talbot pulled him up to his feet._

_"I got a plan. We going to split up. I can throw them off our scent if I go this way and you go around through the woods," he demonstrated with his hands how Damon was to maneuver through the terrain._

_Talbot handed Damon his water can and told him they were to meet at a Confederate camp on the other side. He clutched his rifle to his chest, "Don't worry, we'll make it," he stated with conviction, "Remember, we came to the party; we might as well have some fun." He smiled at his childhood friend and headed out over the hill._

_Damon made it to the camp barely breathing two days later than Talbot's estimated arrival. He was given a flea-ridden cot to rest which he thought would be his death bed while a doctor checked his vitals and asked if he needed to dictate a letter to a nurse. He thought about writing to Stefan and asking if Katherine was still on the plantation, but first he needed to find Talbot. He grabbed the Doctor's wrist before he moved to the next wailing man and asked about his friend's whereabouts when the doctor flipped through his paper roster to inform him a Union Soldier had blown his brains out._

Bonnie wakes up with her hand over her heart.

She's trembling and frightened by the black shadows swarming on her ceiling made by the oak tree and the moon outside her window. She darts her hand from under her covers and reaches for the lamp because she believes the light will cast out what lives in the dark.

Bonnie had been so proud of herself when she got ready for bed because she thought she would beat the problem of insomnia by popping one of the sleeping pills her father used on his international flights and it had worked for a whole two hours. Under a drug induced sleep she was able to drift off into nothingness, where her subconscious was able to rest until it was drop-kicked awake by Damon's memories. And it's jarring not to dream, but to land on your ass in someone else's life, you can't get your bearings when you are thrust into to a time you have never lived in or in the skin of a vampire you don't particularly like.

Her lips are still quivering, even with the light on now, and it's because she aches over Talbot's death as if he were her own friend; which makes her want to slip on her sneakers and drive over to the boardinghouse to wake Damon because she needs to talk about their friend.

She calls Lucy.

Lucy picks up and Bonnie can hear a rush of loud voices and dance music over the phone.

"Bonnie?" Lucy yells.

"Can you hear me?" Bonnie yells back even though she can hear Lucy just fine in her empty room.

"Hold up," Lucy says and there is a rustling noise and Bonnie thinks probably from the phone jostling around in that big purse of hers and then silence before Lucy picks up again, "Are you okay?"

Bonnie pushes herself up against her headboard and frowns when she looks at her alarm clock, ""Lucy it's 4 in the morning."

"And I'm an adult with a social life outside of answering calls from my favorite cousin."

"I'm your only cousin."

"Still my favorite. Now what's wrong?"

"Damon is what's wrong. I'm seeing too much and I don't think I'll be able to wait it out. Are you sure we can't try a reversal spell?"

"What was too much?"

"A memory of a friend of his, from when he was human. And he died Lucy. He was so sad and I…" Bonnie's voice breaks because she's back to lying on the yellowed cot being told her best friend was killed, but she quickly composes herself, "I don't wanna see or feel anymore."

Lucy doesn't speak right away and Bonnie hopes it's because she's convinced her to help her reverse the bond.

"Bonnie," Lucy says softly, "You are going to have to toughen up. The bond is barely 48 hours old and I promise you, whatever you are experiencing now is nothing compared to what you are about to go through."

Bonnie places a clammy hand on her forehead and groans, "You know I love you right, but you don't ever make it easier for me."

Lucy laughs, "It's cause' I love you too. You know I hate to be the bearer of bad news Bonnie, but I'm speaking from experience and this bond with Damon is going to change you and I don't want you to lose yourself like I did."

Bonnie is on the verge of asking her how did she find her way back once she was lost?

Lucy fills in the dead air, "What did Damon say when you told him? Did he freak out? I bet he freaked out, vampires can't stand for witches to be in their head?"

"Huh," Bonnie wonders if someone has replaced her cousin on the phone, "Why would I tell him? Nobody is telling him anything."

"You have to tell him, Bonnie," Lucy says in her best 'I mean business voice.' "There is no other way around this. You created a bond with that prick and unfortunately you need his help, and the fact that he doesn't know means he probably has you blocked. He's doesn't allow himself to be susceptible to other people's feelings or he wouldn't be such an asshat, so you have to tell him so he can let you in and then you won't have to carry all his emotional baggage for him, which is what's happening right now.

Bonnie snorts at her cousin's speech, "When did you become Dr. Phil?"

"Read your grimoire thoroughly and you would know this Bonnie."

She rolls her eyes, "This is Damon we are talking about. Do you really see me going to him and sitting him down and saying, 'Let's talk about your feelings'?"

"Why not? You didn't have a problem sharing blood with him."

Bonnie's mouth drops open and she quickly spits out, "Do I really need to go over the list of all the shit Damon has done to me? Killing my mom and turning her into a vampire being at the top."

"Something I'm not really mad at him for."

Bonnie squeaks because she can't form words in response to Lucy's admission.

Lucy continues, "Come on Bonnie, if it was going to be for the princess then at least he had the good sense to pick the right Bennett."

"I can't with you right now," Bonnie says, shaking her head.

"Fine, let's get back to talking about you and this bond with Damon because I don't think you comprehend what I'm trying to tell you."

"Uh huh."

"Trust me; as much as it pains me to say this, he's the only person who can make this easier on you."

Slats of sunshine warm Bonnie's purple comforter and she's annoyed that it's time for her to get dressed for school, "I'll think about it Lucy, but you know how he irks me."

Lucy laughs again, "That'll change."

BBBBBBBBB

Bonnie is waiting outside the senior counselor's office of Mystic Falls High. She had almost forgotten she had scheduled this meeting with her to go over switching out one of her electives. She didn't know how she ended up in woodshop and she didn't care, she only knew she was going to get it switched for pottery.

She checks her cell phone for a fifth time since she's stepped into the office and is concerned when she sees her texts to Caroline and Jeremy have gone unanswered.

Caroline wasn't in their first period Gym and she hadn't seen Jeremy's puppy dog eyes waiting for her to love him again from across the hallway.

She notices a new face behind the receptionist desk and she pulls her lips into a smile when she catches the face staring at her.

The young woman returns her smile, "Ms. Stewart will be with you soon; we had a teacher pull a junior in here for a conference," She says to Bonnie like that should explain why she's been waiting for half an hour and is about to miss her lunch.

Bonnie holds back a grumble and looks at the wood-grain nameplate on the woman's desk, "Ms. Benavidez?"

The woman's eyebrows fly up at her name being called. "Ms. Benavidez is my mom, call me Veronica."

Bonnie gets up from the bench and walks up to Veronica's metal desk, "Does Ms. Stewart have any availability later today to speak with me, I skipped breakfast and don't want to miss lunch."

"Let me see," She says scrunching her brow and click clacking on her keyboard, "Your last name is Bennett?"

"Last time I checked," Bonnie answers.

Veronica's hands fall flat on to the keys causing the computer to go crazy, "Any relation to the late Sheila Bennett?"

Bonnie glances up at the school sprinkler system and ponders how fast they will turn on if she has to set anyone on fire.

"She's my gra..I mean she was my grandmother." She says, wary of Veronica, but inching closer anyway to pick up her aura. When she doesn't feel her heart jolt she cancels out vampire. Maybe she's a witch? But Bonnie realizes Veronica could be an entity she's never encountered before, a being she might have foolishly believed from her childhood only existed in horror stories.

Veronica's chair rolls backward as she moves knick knacks out of her way to sit on her desk to be closer to Bonnie. She tucks her jet-black hair behind her ears and gushes, "I wrote my thesis on her occult research in College," Veronica's honey colored eyes light up, "I worshipped your Grandmother," She says putting her hand over her heart, "She was truly a gifted woman."

Bonnie relaxes when Veronica's words of admiring Sheila reaches her flight or fight switch.

"I would love to pick your brain about some of Sheila's work, if you don't mind?"

Their conversation is interrupted by Ms. Stewart's door swinging open and hitting the wall as a tall and lanky boy walks out screaming, "Fuck this school!"

Ms. Stewart looks flustered, her cheeks are red and her shoulder length, white-blonde hair is wispy and looks like she had rubbed a balloon all over her head.

"Bonnie," She says in her small, sweet voice, "I'm sorry you had to wait so long," She presses her thin lips together and extends her arm for Bonnie to take a seat in her office.

"No worries and my issue won't take long." She grabs her canvas bag from the bench and tells Veronica she will talk to her when she's done. She walks into Ms. Stewart's cozy office that smells of the vanilla candles she burns daily.

"What can I do for you, Bonnie?" She says, pulling out Bonnie's academic folder from a filing cabinet and placing it on top her desk.

"I'm in woodshop and I want to be out," She states as Ms. Stewart puts on her thick frames to look over the contents of her folder, "I want to take pottery with Mr. Jones in place of it."

"I think Mr. Jones's class is full but let me check," She rolls her chair to her computer and Bonnie watches every movement in her face for an inclination that her life can be saved from woodchips and dust.

Ms. Stewart sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth and instead of Bonnie thinking she will be stuck making a lamp for a semester, she is immediately drawn into a memory where Ms. Stewart was biting and sucking her lips with her sweaty legs wrapped around the narrow muscular waist of Damon Salvatore.

She's given a replay of the brief seduction.

_Mousey Ms. Stewart was celebrating her 28th birthday with a group of friends at the Grill, she was done up wearing a sparkly blue dress and drunkenly fell for what Damon might have considered a smile. She strutted up to him and asked if he was her birthday present and Damon paid for a birthday shot which he poured into her mouth and some of the alcohol missed and streamed down her chin onto her neck and he licked the alcohol up the side of her neck, right where he wanted to…_

Bonnie crosses her legs to stop the pulsating between them and frowns because if she knew Damon could be aroused over his hunger for blood then she would have never agreed for him to drink from her.

_Damon suggested she ditch her friends and come home with him and she left to hug her friends goodbye. Damon didn't even have to compel her; she got into his car and went home with him without any reserve. _

Bonnie wonders what the hell is wrong with the women of Mystic Falls.

_Ms. Stewart scraped her short nails down Damon's bare chest to his v-shaped torso and his skin prickled under her touch as he pushed her down and grabbed the back of her thighs to hitch around his waist as he sucked at the hollow of her throat and ground his pelvis into her._

_Ms. Stewart made a lot of noise. _

_Damon slid down Ms. Stewarts' body and captured a blush pink nipple between his teeth and sucked while he took two fingers and rubbed circles over her clit before thrusting them inside of her, making her call his name out._

Bonnie has never had sex like that. Her experiences consisted of being fingered by Tyler in the 8th grade when they both were picked for "7 Minutes in Heaven" at Stacey Culpepper's Birthday party, and what used to be a special night of her first time shared with Jeremy, but after being betrayed by him cheating with Anna, she just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened.

"No interest in fencing?" Ms. Stewart asks and Bonnie shakes her head because if she opens her mouth now it will be to say, "Not you too, Margaret!" She's decided she can't call the woman Ms. Stewart anymore, not when she knows what she looks like naked.

The vanilla candles are making her nauseous and she's stuck thinking about the lyrics from a stupid Katy Perry song and she's worrying over if what Lucy said to her earlier about her changing meant questioning her sexuality, but she stops herself from going into a anxiety ridden downward spiral because she reminds herself she drunk the blood from a 170 year old demon and pissed off nature.

Was she really the only woman in Mystic Falls who didn't find him appealing?

Bonnie would give the women of Mystic Falls, that, yes, Damon is handsome, bordering on beautiful. He has thick dark hair, a body sculpted in resemblance of a Greek god, _one of the lesser ones_, and bright blue eyes that some, like her, would describe as cold, but when she had expressed this to Elena once, Elena had scoffed at her, and at Caroline for agreeing, and said his eyes were magnetic.

With all that out in the open she could level with the women, that Damon is a gorgeous man, but his outward beauty could not conceal the darkness under his skin and she's dumbfounded by how many people miss the _real_ him.

Bonnie mumbles the beginnings of different incantations, wondering which one will block out the rest of the porn she's forced to watch, when she confesses to herself that Damon wasn't all darkness, mostly when it came to Elena, but there were times, very few times, when she thought he was less horrible than usual.

He had said she had nice eyes once.

It was the first day of spring and she wanted to practice her magic with him outside to celebrate. He obliged her when he finally wore her down to fulfill his repeated request of turning a jug of water into wine when they returned back to the boardinghouse. Their practices involved a dark game of hide and seek. He would hide and she would find him before he attacked. She had did a great job of catching him before he got to her, flinging his body around like a ragdoll against trees until he had to yell for her stop. But right when she declared victory, he surprised her by dropping down from the sky directly in front of her and she stumbled. He straddled her, knee on each side of her hip, pinned her arms down and leaned down to inform her that he wouldn't let her go until she said he was the winner. She threatened him to high heaven, and the zipper of his leather jacket dragged against her chest as he made slow movements like he was getting off of her, but when she rose up, he pushed her back down again and grinned. She glared at him thinking of how funny it would be for his hair to catch on fire when he said, "You know what Bennett?" He started with his face so close to hers she could taste the blood and alcohol on his breath.

"Those eyes of yours aren't half bad." He smiled before following it with, "I bet Baby Gilbert gets lost in them" He said mocking her with a kissy face.

She couldn't hold back her smile as she punched him in his arm and he rubbed his non-existent bruise calling her a violent woman as he helped her up and brushed the leaves from her hair.

That was before Alaric's death and the turning of Abby.

"Bonnie?"

Bonnie finally pays attention to Margaret calling her name, "Yeah?"

"I have you all settled, you can start going to pottery tomorrow," She smiles and Bonnie wants her to stop.

Bonnie can't leave Margaret's office fast enough and bolts for the exit when Veronica comes around her desk to ask her if everything is okay.

"Oh yeah, everything is good," She lies. "And about my Gramm's work, you can ask me anything you want. My number's in my file so feel free to use it," She says.

The bell rings alerting her she has missed her lunch and will have to be in third period soon. She hustles down the hallway, her bag bumping into the back of her legs with each step when she runs into Matt.

She beams, happy to see a friend and to be out of her own thoughts, "At least you're not a wall," She says as they stand in the middle of the hall while people flow around them to get to the row of green lockers or to sit at the windows looking out onto football field.

"Hey, have you seen Caroline or Jeremy?"

He gives her a somber look and puts his hand on the back of his neck which is never a good sign and Bonnie's heart rate picks up.

"Didn't they tell you?"

She loses her smile, "Tell me what?"

"It's Jeremy. Stefan has been trying to get him to complete some kind of vampire hunter's mark and it's making him crazy. He tried to kill Elena last night, Damon was at their house and stopped him before he was able to stake her."

"Oh my god, Matt." Bonnie's bag drops to the floor and her fingers rake into her hair, her eyes search for Jeremy down the hall and she's doesn't know where she is anymore.

Matt picks up Bonnie's bag and gives a disappointed look to the small crowd of kids who lingered at their locker to gawk at Bonnie. He places his hand at the small of her back and ushers her to the window, "Bonnie, breathe," He says with one hand on the back of her neck and the other fanning fresh air to her face."

"Better?" He asks and she nods even though she still can't breathe.

"Is she okay? How's Jeremy?" She rambles.

"They'll be fine," He says out of habit. He grips her shoulder because she's shaking and he doesn't want her to break down in the hallway, not in front of all these people. He pulls her into a hug and whispers, "You did the right thing Bonnie, by what you did with Elena and taking a step back. I don't blame you, why do you think I don't come around as often? He runs his hand over her hair, "Sometimes we gotta love people with a twelve foot pole or they'll drag us down with them."

The tardy bell rings and he tells her he has to get to calculus. But she doesn't hear him, or the squeak of tennis shoes against linoleum, or the bellows of teachers quieting down their classrooms. They are all drowned by the little voices of children laughing outside her Gramm's old house and promising each other they would always be best friends.


	3. Chapter 3

Bonnie bangs her fist on the hand-crafted door of the Salvatore Boardinghouse. She's sleep-deprived and starving and panicking because no one is responding to a phone call or a text and she's disappointed with herself because she wasn't capable of loving anyone with a 12-foot pole no matter how much her life would be better off if she learned to do so, she's just not made up that way, she's an all or nothing kind of girl, and because she didn't know how to put distance between herself and her emotions, she walked out of class in a rush to the Gilbert's place only to find no one was home which meant she'd have to come to this stupid boardinghouse where no one seems to be in a hurry to answer the damn door which makes her bang on the door harder.

The door flings wide open and her small fist glides through the air as she lurches over the door step, knees buckling for a crash into the metal frame, when she is caught from her fall into the strong hands of a half-dressed Salvatore.

The side of her face smushes against Damon's bare chest, her chin sliding over taut muscle and icy skin, and she's ambushed by the crisp scent of soap and water, making her think of the word, _'pure'_, an adjective that has been said by no one ever in regards to Damon Salvatore. She angles her head up to see his eye brow cocked and his lip curled with satisfaction and her blood boils with agitation over having been saved by him. She yanks her hands from his and steadies herself on her own two feet, "You couldn't button your shirt before answering the door?" She scowls, judging him with a once over from head to toe as she whisks to the living room where she suspects everyone has chosen to convene and avoid her.

Damon slams the door shut and in his head says, 'you're welcome'. His heavy boots follow behind the little witch. "Thought I'd throw you a bone," he says to Bonnie, who is bent over the coffee table, spouting off titles as she wildly flipped over the many books he was researching before she came like a tornado into his home.

She huffs loudly, straightens her back and asks, "Where are they?"

Damon considers Bonnie in her usual uniform of high-top converses and dark-wash jeans painted over curves and an ill fitted sweater hiding fresh skin, and he knows anyone who saw her today missed the nuanced change in her demeanor. They thoughtlessly might have assumed she was the same sweet and spunky girl from yesterday. But he notices. Even if the rest of the world has yet to catch on, that there is something different about Bonnie Bennett.

And it makes him want to ask this person what they've done with his witch.

He wrinkles his forehead while buttoning the bottom three buttons of his black shirt and makes his way to the bar because she's in a mood and whatever had her riled up would require for him to have a drink. He plays with danger and ignores her question, "I wasn't expecting you until later," He states, skipping the ice and pouring bourbon straight into crystal, "Did your school let you out early?" Damon feels like a douchebag every time he has to ask someone around him about high school.

Bonnie's heart is pounding in her throat and her nerves are jumping like she drank ten cups of coffee. No one she was looking for is at the boardinghouse except Damon who is all calm, collected and closed off from her. She stares at him, really takes a look at the man standing across from her and wants to spill she knows secrets about him, things he hasn't shared with anyone, not even Elena, things she knows like how he cried so much when his mother died that his father locked him in his room for two days, and that there was a huge piece of land off the coast of Santa Barbara that belonged to the Salvatore Family because he bought it hoping he would move Stefan and him out west, and that it's not right for her to be eighteen, walking out of her history class because she couldn't take the lesson since it's one thing to crack open a history book and see images of sullen faces and broken bodies and read about battle sites and dates, and it's another to have those bodies breathe and open their mouths and speak and have the mental scars of those battles.

She was sure if she cracked his face with that truth he wouldn't act like he didn't hear her question.

Bonnie asks about her friend's whereabouts again and is answered with a bored shrug.

Agitated; she kicks the books off the table and they land haphazardly on the Persian rug, "What's going on that has you reading about mythology?" She demands with her arms crossed like a sore sport.

Damon is amused as he picks up one of the books which had fallen on its crumpled pages. He settles in on the couch with drink and book in hand, "I'm thinking about taking up bird watching," He says, smiling at the fuming witch.

She doesn't ask how the two are related instead she thinks about stomping through the house, screaming the names of her friends until one of them comes out to tell her everything is okay so that she could stop having the gut wrenching fear that the worst has come. She drops her bag from her shoulder onto the fine rug and walks over to the floor to ceiling windows. She pulls back one of the burgundy velvet curtains and looks to see if any cars had pulled up while she was there.

She feels eyes on her and she looks back quickly to see Damon's face buried in his book.

"Where's Elena?"

Bonnie is a broken record.

"I don't know."

"Where's Jeremy?"

"Why?"

Bonnie stomps over to the couch, "Answer me."

He licks his finger and flips a page, "I need your help on something, give me your word you'll help and I'll show you where Van Helsing is," He says with his eyes still locked on the words of his book.

And she was supposed to tell this psychopath she was bonded to him and have him care enough to help her?

She takes the book from his hands and throws it across the room and Damon imagines it was him who she wanted to throw.

"Deal. Where's Jeremy?"

He stands to his full height, towering over her, and taps her nose like she's a pet, "You're cute when you're being aggressive?"

BBBBBBBBBB

When she realizes he is leading her to the basement stairs; she has an uncontrollable urge to knock Damon aside and rush past him to see what has happened to Jeremy. But the vampire seems to sense her urgency and walks at the pace of molasses while tugging on that thread she's barely hanging from by editorializing what happened last night at the Gilbert House.

_"Elena sleeps in this little skimpy…" or "Baby Gilbert didn't know what hit him…"_

She doesn't listen to his words and concentrates on the glee that is emanating from him; and she wonders what has made him so damn happy because he certainly wasn't doing cartwheels or anything demonstrative of the warmth she was feeling from the bond.

They reach the bottom of the staircase and Damon's head brushes the tip of the exposed hanging bulb and the light swings over them.

Damon yells at a rusted door with a small eye-level grate, "Gilbert? Bennett's here; she wants to make sure her Romeo is alive and kicking, "He says, leaning against the door and smirking at Bonnie who is in shock.

There is a scuffle of movement, feet and hands slapping against concrete behind the door and then the voice of her former flame precedes his tender face with brown locks falling in his eyes, "Bonnie…Bonnie, Elena needs your help," he says for the millionth time it since his sister met a Salvatore.

She inhales and exhales for a full minute before she slides her slender hand through the grate to touch Jeremy's cheek, "Let him out," She orders not looking away from Jeremy. Jeremy is frenetic, she can see it in his eyes and she's trying to calm him down with her touch and a mental spell but his mind is static, she's having trouble reaching him.

"Can't," Damon smiles before continuing, "Stefan went a little gung-ho in his cure search and covered all his bases. Before finding the cure spell he listened to some quack named Shane who said if Gilbert here," He nods to Jeremy, "Killed twelve vampires then it would activate some tribal tattoo that would lead us to a cure, well twelve deaths later, no tattoo and we got ourselves a crazed attempted sister killing Gilbert. Turns out you weren't cut out for greatness like you might have thought there buddy, "He relays like if he were talking about the weather before leaning in closer to Bonnie who hasn't stopped touching Jeremy to his repulsion, "Speaking of tattoos, when you're done here, I have something to show you."

Bonnie pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes, "Damon. By the time I count to three, this door better be open and you better be out of my sight."

"Or else what?"

Jeremy and Bonnie both throw him a look and he becomes aware and slightly jealous that they are the real team as the three of them debate over what to do outside the cellar door.

He grimaces and starts to ascend the stairs without her, "Listen Bennett, it wasn't my idea to lock Baby Gilbert in here." He looks back to see she has no intention of leaving her precious Jeremy," You can take your grievances up with Ele…"

"What?! Elena would never allow her own brother to be locked away in this…this, "she shouts even though she believes Damon when he says it wasn't his idea because she can feel his recognition of knowing what it feels like to be locked away by someone you loved which makes her all the more upset because he didn't show compassion to Jeremy. Her eyes water, "You have him locked away in this dungeon."

Damon stops climbing the stairs, rolls his eyes and turns around to the witch, "Dungeon? Really?"

Bonnie narrows her eyes and screams obscenities at him; shocking Jeremy who steps back from his prison door; amusing Damon who agrees with some of the expletives she hurls at him and when the basement door flies open; alarming the hell out of Elena and Stefan standing at the entrance of the tight doorway.

Elena squints her eyes, "Bonnie?" She asks like she's unsure if that is really her life-long friend calling her other friend such horrible things she would never repeat. She gives Stefan a pained look and then looks to Damon who has pressed his back against the wall because he can feel how thick the air just got with Bonnie and Elena in the same vicinity.

Elena takes a few steps down into the basement, "What are you doing here?" she asks, tucking a chocolate strand behind her ear.

Bonnie glares at Damon and he thinks she might as well have stuck her tongue out at him.

"Thank God you're here, Damon won't let Jeremy out so I can help him," She spits out in one breath, waiting for Elena to order Damon to open the door.

Elena is confused and glances back at Stefan before turning back to Bonnie. "Yeah," she nods, "That's because I asked him to; it's too dangerous for everyone for Jeremy to be out…"

Bonnie cocks her neck back and her mouth sours, "So you wanted your brother locked up like an animal?" She pays no attention to Damon's scoffs and questions of where was her concern when Stefan threw him in there a few months back.

Elena sighs and in that throaty voice of hers says, "It was only temporary until we could do the spell to cure him."

Bonnie believes she and Elena have stepped into another universe and she was given the hard journey of finding the route for them to get back. Bonnie wonders when they were going to call her if her brother's imprisonment was temporary. Her eyes search into Elena's and there is so much confusion there that Bonnie forgets who she is. She turns away and says, "Okay, let Jeremy out and I'll run and go get my grimoire and we'll take care of this," she bargains, determined to free Jeremy.

She watches Elena and Stefan silently discuss what to do when she sees Caroline's blonde head and a strange woman peek down the staircase.

"Who's that?" Damon asks for both he and Bonnie's curiosity.

Stefan doesn't answer them and instead asks for everyone to gather in the living room for a civil discussion.

Damon and Bonnie share concerned expressions as he waits for her on the stairs to finish up with Boy Wonder. He watches her reach for Jeremy's cheek again and he listens to her softly say, "Don't worry, I'll take care of this," with such hubris that Damon is moved by her unfaltering loyalty, even if it was a loyalty that wasn't bestowed to him.

BBBBBBBBBB

"What did you do to Bonnie?"

Damon is not impressed that Stefan saw a difference in the witch. He's actually kind of disappointed; he thought he had the corner market on knowing Bonnie was a bit off until she blew up at him with more curse words than a Chris Rock stand-up and checked her best friend for locking up her brother so he wouldn't attack her. But, Damon is honored that Stefan thinks he had something to do with Bonnie's change and he brushes his knuckles against his collar and his mouth shrugs as if to say, 'wouldn't you like to know' as he starts to walk out the kitchen and join the gang waiting in the living room when Stefan blocks his exit.

"Save the games for Elena, Damon. What's wrong with Bonnie?" Stefan questions but Damon can hear the threat.

Stefan's mouth is in a straight line, forehead crinkled and feet apart, playing the part of protective father over Bonnie and the faucet is gushing and Stefan is whispering and Damon thinks it's hilarious that Stefan believes the other vampires in the house can't hear them.

Damon is all of sudden ravenous and he bypasses Stefan's block to grab a blood bag from the freezer to pop in the microwave. He clicks the 'popcorn' button because after numerous tries he's discovered it's just the right amount of time to reach the 98.6 degreed temperature he loves and he stretches his hands across the kitchen island and exhales for added drama instead of need and says, "Define wrong?"

Stefan folds his arms and tightens his jaw.

He inwardly smiles because he enjoys annoying his self-righteous brother especially when he gives him a tone like he cares more about Bonnie than him, "If you are referring to her fuss over Baby Gilbert? Then I would agree, I thought she was over him too," He kids, while sweeping up invisible crumbs on the marble island with his hand; it was meant to be a joke of course but Damon can't help how his mind knows there is some truth in his retort. He doesn't understand how the boy was able to still get her loyalty after hurting her.

His brother corners him on the opposite side of the counter, "She seems wound up."

Damon snorts, "She's always wound up."

"More so than usual."

The microwave dings and Damon tastes blood and Stefan blocks him yet one more time to test Damon's patience and taps Damon on his shoulder, "She smells like you, Damon."

Damon stares down at Stefan's finger and reminds him of how he feels about being touched. Stefan sidesteps his brother while Damon runs his hand under the running water and finally turns the faucet off, "Stop pretending you don't want her to hear this," He states, tilting his head towards the living room to acknowledge Elena is the real reason why Stefan is upset.

Stefan frowns, "She asked you not to go to Bonnie for help; you do it anyway. She's under so much stress with learning to be a vampire and dealing with her brother and you go and do who knows what with Bonnie."

Damon's upper lip lifts into a slight smile at Stefan's words of doing who knows what with Bonnie. He wags a finger at Stefan and winks, "Whose fault is Jeremy, dear brother?" He retrieves his warm bag from the microwave and juggles it from hand to hand.

"Was Bonnie hurt? Is that why she smells like you?"

Damon acts like he's searching for a mug as he considers Stefan's question with his back turned going from cabinet to cabinet to hide he was distracted by the memory of her voice saying she needed his blood. And he's overwhelmed by the thrill that it was him that was able to give her what she needed. It makes him foolishly want to puff out his chest and conjures up passages of some Arthurian tale about knights slaying dragons for their ladies.

Even though Judgy hadn't pledged any allegiance to him, he wanted to be loyal to her. There was a reason she hadn't told them she had exhausted her power and he wasn't going to tell them without her consent. Besides, leaving out the real reason of how they came to exchange blood left him to devise a story based on his own wicked imagination, "I'm not one to kiss and tell, but look at me? How could she resist?" He smirks.

Stefan slaps his hand over his face and shakes his head.

Damon twists the top to his warm blood bag and pours it into a yellow mug with a happy face painted on the front, "Oh!" he bumps his palm to his forehead like he just remembered something very important, "In case you had big plans to turn my room into storage for all your diaries, you can think again. Elena and I talked last night," His brows do a little dance along with his hips, "And I've decided to stay," He informs a disturbed Stefan before strutting out the kitchen.

BBBBBBBBBB

Bonnie and Elena are locked in a staring contest and Caroline is blabbering, filling up the painful silence between her friends.

"We missed you, Bonnie," Caroline finally blurts after she's run out of polite conversation; a practice she learned in Pageantry training and never thought she'd have to use between two people she's known since kindergarten.

Bonnie offers Caroline a weak smile that doesn't reach her eyes and stares back at Elena whose voice is barely above a whisper when she asks her long she's been there.

"Not long," Bonnie says to the brunette as she mentally counts the minutes it is taking her to explain the other witch seated behind her.

When they had walked into the living room, Caroline had remarked on how dark it was and the row of curtains along the wall swiped open. Elena and Caroline beamed at Bonnie whose forehead crinkled. Daphne with her dyed-black bob and rock–a-billy bangs and too much eyeliner cleared her throat and tossed a smug smile to Bonnie before taking a seat behind her.

Elena 's hair swings when she turns to Caroline; seated in an armchair across from her, "Can you take Jeremy some bottled water and I think there are some pop tarts in there you can give him."

Caroline looks from girl to girl and wonders if she should leave them alone but rises in her riding boots and formfitting sweater dress. "Okay seriously, when I come back, I expect to see you both back to finishing each other sentences." She waves her hand to Bonnie and to Elena, "Because this is just weird," Caroline smiles brightly as she walks out of the living room because she believes the bond between the three of them is unbreakable and that after today she'll have her best friends back and not these girls who she can't pick out of a crowd.

Caroline leaves and Elena can't take the pressure of Bonnie's stare anymore as she rubs her palms over her jeans like she's trying to start a fire, "Bonnie I'm sorry."

Bonnie hears Elena's apology but when she looks at her she only sees hoop dresses, petticoats and flirty smiles.

"Get over it, Stefan!" Damon yells as the guys continue their bickering into the living room

Damon takes a seat on the same couch as Bonnie, and Elena looks lost, until Stefan comes over to kiss her forehead and give her courage by standing beside her and intertwining his hand with hers.

Damon takes a sip of his blood and props his feet on the coffee table, "We're all here Stefan; now tell us who the Goth chick is?" Damon asks, as he glances over at Bonnie, expecting her to be making a face at him for being disrespectful as usual, but her attention is front and center as if he wasn't there, and he stretches one long arm across the length of the couch, fingertips barely out of reach of Bonnie.

Stefan pulls a chair next to Elena, who didn't want to let go of his hand when he had to remove it to grab the chair. He leans over; hands clasped together, "Daphne is a witch. She's here to help us with Jeremy."

Damon is stunned and his body reacts as such, shoulders jerking forward, feet searching for the stability of the floor and almost spitting up the blood in his mug. But to no one's surprise he's able to keep the blood down.

"Little Ms. Marilyn Manson back there is a witch?"

A fire combusts in the hearth and the three vampires throw their attention to Daphne.

"No offense," he says with a smirk over his shoulder to Daphne.

Daphne comments, "If I were you, I'd watch what I say, I'm only here on a loan from Klaus."

"Wait a minute, Klaus? You work for Klaus? What the fuck, Stefan?" Damon stands, ready for a fight at the mention of his name like the hybrid had stepped into the room. "What would make you do something as idiotic as going to Klaus?"

"It was Elena's choice."

Damon frowns, "What did you have to promise Klaus in exchange for Daphne's help, Elena?"

Stefan is Elena's mouthpiece, "In exchange for her help, Elena will share the cure with him."

"What does the hybrid want with the cure? Have you guys thought that maybe he wants Elena back human so he can go back to making his army?

"If it were up to me, Damon, I wouldn't have reached out to Klaus for an ally, but it wasn't up to me." Stefan responds, clearly not thrilled by his beloved's decision.

"Bonnie and I had a shot at turning you back human, you didn't have to go to Klaus," He declares to Elena with so much disappointment in his voice that tears fill her eyes. "Bonnie knows what to do already, she even was coming over here to talk to us about it because but the cure requires a couple of things, isn't that right, Bonnie?"

Bonnie mumbles about a knife and a new moon and Damon is worried.

Bonnie is running her nails over the brass bulleting on the couch, half-moon crests puncturing the front of the leather armrest. She hates the Salvatore living room. The ancient furniture, dark cloth and dust. Whenever she was in it she felt like she was in a museum, surrounded by dead things. But she's always liked the red couch. She even remembers when it was purchased, 1937, Manhattan, along with a baby grand that's in the sitting room on the second floor.

Elena cries, "You promised me."

"She's your best friend, Elena," Damon yells back.

Or was it 1938? Bonnie thinks, no, it was 1937 and it was from a shop owned by those snotty sisters, one of them she dated. Sisters. They fought all the time. Snotty, fighting sisters. But, sisters fight. She bets right now at this moment, there are sisters fighting all over the world, some over toys, or over who belonged with who on a TV show, or how to better take care of an aging mother or father.

The three vampires are arguing and Bonnie thinks about a time she swam in an ocean she's never been in. Was it Indian or Pacific? Hotel lights illuminated the coastline and made the ripples her hands caused from each stroke look like she was swimming through black glass. Can a vampire drown? She thought, limbs pushing her under until there were no more thoughts.

"There is no other witch but Bonnie," Damon shouts, running his hand through his hair and needing a drink badly. He's distracted; the witch is too quiet, letting them discuss her without giving them a piece of her mind, and he doesn't like it, and he doesn't understand the nagging knock he hears when he looks over at her sitting there like a vegetable, and it's getting louder and louder and louder to where he keeps wondering if it isn't in his head and there really is someone at the front door.

Caroline zips to stand on the coffee table, hands up, like she's ready to blow a whistle and yell for both teams to go cool off, "Stop fighting!"

The room is silent but for Bonnie who finally pulls herself together to realize she's a fighter. She fought for the people she loved and the life she knew. And it was all about to leave if she didn't fight again, and she won't let that happened because she wants it back more than anything in the world. Her heart-shaped face turns up to Elena, "You told Damon to look for another witch," She comments and they all look at each other in concern.

"She did", Stefan answers.

"And you went to Klaus, our sworn enemy for help." Bonnie stands from the couch, "Who are you?" She asks, squinting at Elena like maybe it was Katherine across from her.

No one answers.

Elena tucks hair behind ears and focuses her eyes on anything but Bonnie, "We needed a witch."

Bonnie feels like she took a bullet, but she straightens her spine and quietly says, "This isn't you Elena. I don't know who you are trying to be, but it's not Elena."

Elena's mouth trembles from fresh tears and dread, she's never seen this Bonnie and it makes her scared, "I don't know who you are either. You hurt me and ignore me at school and my calls and thought I would go to you for help?

Bonnie narrows her eyes and steps forward, the only thing separating the girls is the coffee table Caroline is standing on, "If I wouldn't have stopped you then we'd be missing Matt right now."

Elena hands fly to meet her chest, "Matt knows how sorry I am! I can't change what I did or who I am now. What do you want from me, Bonnie?"

"I want my sister back," Bonnie answers without a thought, like kids respond to whether they want broccoli or ice cream.

Elena nods, her fear morphing into anger, "You know what I want? I want my brother to stop trying to kill me," Elena's voice rises as she paces back and forth like a feline predator trapped in a cage, "Let me see what else do I want," She mocks Bonnie as she lists," I want to stop thinking about drinking my best friend's blood and obsessing over why she smells like Damon and even the fact that her blood makes me hungry is something I can't wrap my head around, and it's so hard, she doesn't know how hard it's been to do this without her."

"You shouldn't need me to make the right choices for you, Elena."

Elena affects her face like she's been slapped, "Excuse me, but what about your choices, Bonnie? Why don't you just come out and say how me being a vampire makes you sad, and Caroline too, or how Stefan but apparently not Damon disgusts you!"

Bonnie's green eyes glare at Damon and a heat rolls through him, a feeling of embarrassment, like a secret of his was revealed and he's blinded by flashes of pictures, pictures from a car window; they are all of him, he's drunk outside a bar with a blonde stuck to him; his eyes a cold blue fire peering down with his voice drunk and wounded, "You're a punk kid witch. What are you gonna do?"

His eyes widen at the witch who is no longer looking at him.

Stefan tries to calm Elena with a hand on her shoulder; but she flashes in front of Bonnie, leaving him gripping air. Elena's boots meet the rubber tips of Bonnie's converse, "So, Let's talk about it." The doppelganger insists.

Bonnie has to look up to Elena, but she's had to do that her entire life, so Elena hovering over her has no effect, "No, what disgusts me is your inability to speak for yourself, the Elena I knew wouldn't need a Salvatore to talk for her."

"Sorry to tell you this Bonnie, but she's dead and you couldn't save her."

Damon is the only one who notices Bonnie flinch as every single window pane on the west side of the boarding house shatters, one after another, like cymbals clanging in Beethoven's 9th, a cacophony of glass crashing into hardwood.

Bonnie scurries around the couch to grab her bag from the floor while everyone is frozen in shock. She runs for the front door and hears every voice but Elena's beg her to stop and stay.

"Bonnie, stop!"

She makes it to the gravel driveway, her legs pumping up and down, heart hammering in her chest and her vision is blurring from hot tears. She blinks to clear her eyes and smacks into Damon.

"I said stop." He growls, his hands wrapped around Bonnie's arms.

She's skittish and she can't stop her mouth from quivering, "Let me go," she stammers, trying to wriggle free from his grasp.

He looks at her like it's his first time ever seeing her and he smiles and Bonnie thinks Damon would smile when she's hurt. He loosens his grip but doesn't let her go and Bonnie thinks there will be fingerprints where his hands were on her later.

Damon snorts, "I can't; I wanna talk to you before you run off to a life of kicking puppies and blotting out rainbows."

She realizes she ran too far; her car is behind her. Where was she running to?

"I don't wanna talk to you," She says, hands wrapped around herself as she looks back to the front of the house and all of its blown out windows, "I can fix it, Damon," she says like she can erase all what happened in that living room. She turns to march back to the house but Damon pulls her back.

They are face to face and her hand is in his and he squeezes it gently, "Just stop."

Her eyes are big and watery and a shade of green that can only be found in Spring and Damon can't help threading his fingers into her curls, "You didn't do anything I wouldn't have done," He comments with his brow furrowed and his voice strong and low, "You're not fixing anything, Stefan will clean it up or better yet, they can get their witch to superglue it all back together," He smirks, "You are coming with me."

He tilts his head and she follows to see they are standing next to his Camaro.

"I should go home," she whispers.

"You can go home later, "He opens the driver's side door for her to hop into the car. Her brow crinkles and she catches her crooked mouth between her teeth and she looks at the boardinghouse then at Damon and he can see how broken and tired she is, and he doesn't want her to go home. He wants her to sit and just be with him, until she feels better and thinks of how to turn it all around, and unlike last night he doesn't allow her reservations about him make him give her an out. He pats the metal door, "Get in the car Bennett, we need to talk."

BBBBBBBBBB

Hank Williams is playing on the juke box and Damon is holding his pointer finger to his temple as he cocks his thumb trigger. He and Bonnie were hiding out from the world in a corner booth of a dive bar about forty miles outside of Mystic Falls, in one of those towns where there was only one of everything; one stop light, one gas station, one idiot and so on…

_Hear that lonesome whipperwill_

_He sounds too blue to fly_

"What'll be you two?" says a helmet-haired woman in blue jeans and a long-sleeved Harley-Davidson tee. The waitress has deep, sagging putty wrinkles and a no nonsense demeanor about her but she smiles at Damon and Bonnie, recognizing this pitiful duo needs a smile.

Damon considers the appearance of his under-age companion and wonders if Grandma' will let him order a drink for him and his weeping side-kick. He could always compel her but with Bonnie's current state she wouldn't see the humor. He would merely end up writhing on the floor.

"Can I get two shots of Elijah Craig and a Shirley temple for the lady?"

If Bonnie is insulted by Damon choosing a drink for her, she doesn't show it, she is busy trying to hide the tears seeping out the slits of her eyes, wiping each trail with the cuff of her sweater.

Grandma's smile fades when Bonnie sniffles, "You sure you don't wanna get something stronger for her?"

Damon leans over the edge of the table, motioning for the old lady to come closer and join him on a conspiratorial conversation, "What's your name?" He whispers.

"Alice."

"Alice, my friend here had a rough day, so let's spike her drink and instead of two shots, make that four."

"K, darlin'."

Alice slides her feet across the dirty floor to the bar and gives their order to a man Damon thinks should be called Bubba and if he isn't then someone should remedy that. Bubba is round and sweating and has a camouflage trucker hat on and suspenders over a dirty white undershirt; he glances over at a sad Bonnie and bobs his head like he agrees with Alice telling him to bend the rules for this kid.

"One of those shots is mine," Bonnie chokes between tears.

Damon wants to smile, he was worried she wouldn't talk at all and this entire trip was going to be a waste. She was quiet the entire car ride even though he had kept the music off, something he never does in case she wanted to vent. But she was clammed up and silently stared out the car window; her body angled away from him and pressed against the door as if she was ready to jump out the car at any moment.

Alice sets their drinks on the table and he pushes Bonnie's tumbler to her and swallows two of his shots. Bonnie is still blinking back the waterworks and he doesn't know what to do with himself; he's never seen Bonnie cry and it makes him concerned for the world because Bonnie is like atlas, holding up their world up in skinny jeans with a crooked smile, and if Atlas is in a bar crying then the world is doomed.

He reaches across the table and swipes a tear from her chin, "You can't cry in a bar, Bennett. It's too fucking depressing and you're getting tears in your Shirley Temple."

Bonnie agrees with Damon; it is depressing and she sniffs back the next wave of tears from pouring out.

She takes a deep breath and sips her drink, thankful for the alcohol mixed in.

Damon approves of Bonnie sucking down her beverage because his plan was to get her liquored up so she could forget her problems for a little while. Except this was Bonnie he is thinking about, so even with her knocking back her drink at record speed, he expects her to start barking orders at any minute on how they were going to rescue Jeremy from hunterism and scheduling the most inconvenient time for them to go on a MacGuffin chase for the knife she incoherently babbled about back at the boardinghouse.

Damon can count on his hand how many times he's asked anyone these words, and he stumbles over them when he asks, "How do you feel?"

But she dismisses his reaching out and folds her arms and states, "You knew Elena was going to be upset that you went to me for the cure."

Damon welcomes the burning sensation of another shot before responding, "She wanted the cure and you're the only one who can give it to her."

Bonnie wants to know what makes him so sure of her prowess when her friends obviously thought she was replaceable. She can't figure him out and it leaves her exasperated, "But now she's upset with you."

"She won't be pissed for long."

He was right; Elena could never stay mad at him.

She threads her fingers into her hair and Damon's eyes follow their journey until they return to the table and she says, "She's right you know."

He is taken aback and reaches for the fourth shot despite her calling dibs, "What are you talking about?"

"I couldn't save her."

"Bennett, no one could've saved her," He lies because he would have left Matt to drown and grabbed the girl first but he understands he needs to tread lightly with this subject, "Elena is a vampire now and the sooner everyone accepts that, the better."

She rests her forehead into her palms and shakes her head, "You're only saying that because you want her to be like you."

Damon lets out a vicious laugh; throwing out his previous decision to be gentle with her, "Everyone wants to fix her; even you, like she's some broken toy. And me?" He points to himself, "I just want her to be happy whether that's being a vampire or going back to being a real girl."

"It was all for nothing."

She's referring to their blood hook-up and Damon scoffs, "Not nothing; we got your ju-ju back and Daphne", he says like allegedly that's the witch's name, "Is not going to be able to perform the cure and me thinks," He taps his temple, "She won't be able to help her with her brother hunter situation either."

"You really think Daphne won't be able to do it?"

Bonnie's green eyes are so full of hope about being useful to the Scooby Gang that it makes Damon want to recoil away from the witch and take off because her desire to matter is relatable and reminds him of his century stint pining for Katherine.

"Yep, but before you run off to fall on your sword, we need to address some things."

"Like?"

"Like how you blew out all of the windows in the front of my home."

She shrinks back from the table and he continues, "Why are you in such a hurry to go back and act like nothing happened?"

Bonnie squints at Damon and takes a breath like she can't believe she has to explain this to him, "I'm disappointed, but there is still work to be done and if I don't do it then I will lose my friends and I can't lose them, they are all I have."

"Maybe you should take a break from your friends for a while, "He says gaining him a glare. He grabs her straw from her tumbler and chomps down onto the plastic before saying, "Now don't run off making matching bracelets or anything, but in the meantime, if you need a friend, I can act like I care while you complain as long as there is alcohol involved."

She snorts, "Thanks, Damon, but we are not compatible."

His mouth stretches into a close-lipped smile because whether she liked it or not, the truth was he was destined to be in her life before he even knew a kinder version of his bitch of an ex-girlfriend existed. She was a Bennett and he was the protector of their line. On her 18th birthday he would have popped up like he did all the others, told her who he was, what Emily had done and to not call on him unless it was some serious shit. He wasn't big on witch-sitting, he had his own miserable life to attend to, but if she needed him, he would be there, so regardless if she had circled the day he arrived to Mystic Falls on her calendar as "The Day Her Life Ended", she was tied to him from birthright and would be until her death.

Damon refrains from telling her this and plays along, "Why don't you teach me?"

"Because I don't want your friendship," She says between clenched teeth.

He curls his upper lip at her, "K, next question.

"What?"

"What was that back to the future moment where I got to see your memory of my mini breakdown after Alaric; you know when you followed me for that month?" He doesn't want to go into detail; he's not one who likes to relive the past.

Bonnie takes a deep sigh, "It's the Bond," She states like she's tired of talking about it even though it's the first time he's hearing of such a thing.

"Bond?"

She bobs her head, "When we drank each other blood it created a bond…"

Bonnie keeps explaining but Damon is still stuck ruminating over the definition of 'bond' and its beautiful ambiguous meaning to bind.

"We're bonded?"

"Yes," She repeats.

"How does it work?"

"I really have no clue," She states earning a horrified look from Damon, "It wasn't supposed to be a bond," She spits out quickly, "Because the spell was intended for me to just drink your blood but true to form you had to get something out of it."

"What is up with you casting spells you don't know anything about? You're a Bennett witch. Bennett witches know their shit," He whispers like he doesn't want the rest of the bar to hear she's not living up to her family name.

"Hey!" She sticks her finger in his face, "I was trying to get my powers back as soon as possible to help Ele..." She stops short of saying the doppelgangers' name."

Damon shrugs off his jacket, "Do you get to see glimpses from my life?"

She affirms with a nod and wishes she had more liquor, "I also feel your emotions along with your memories."

"What does that do to you?"

Bonnie wrings her hands on the table, "It makes me react how you would I guess or at least empathize with it."

Damon thinks back to how she bogarted her way in his house and threw books around like she owned the place and cursed him out for locking up Baby Hunter and it dawns on him their blood sharing has changed her. And as he glances over at Bonnie, he even sees the difference in her face. Not that the angles and planes of her face had suddenly shifted like a Picasso painting, but there was fervor in her eyes that wasn't there before.

He could depend on Judgy's eyes giving her away.

Damon brandishes a smile at his sullen bonded, "My blood is making you crazy," He teases.

"Excuse me?"

"I see why you blew the windows out now; you wanna be the only one like me. Scared Elena might be stiff competition?" He quips with a raised brow.

"Don't ever say that again. I am drowning here; I have all of your stupid memories and feelings and I don't want them," She spits with her hands centered to her chest.

Damon controls his facial expression. "Flattery will get you nowhere Judgy." His blue eyes darken to cobalt as the ceiling lights flick off and their only light is from glowing neons and old Christmas lights tacked along the perimeter of the bar, "Let me get this straight. This bond gives you a front row seat to my life? You have an all-access pass to my darkest," she nods emphatically, "Depraved", she waves for Alice's attention, "Lustful moments", he exaggerates and she rolls her eyes.

"I know where you're going with this and of course I tell you I'm losing my mind and all you care about is that I know how you like to fuck."

Alice interrupts their conversation and Damon requests for her to bring the whole damn bottle of Elijah Craig to the table.

BBBBBBBBBB

Bonnie is twirling a lock of hair around her finger and finishing off her third glass of bourbon. She grins over at Damon who lifts a concerned eyebrow as she sits up on her knees in the booth to read the drink specials on the black board behind the bar, "What is Goldschlager?" She asks with an excitement that should never be for cinnamon-flavored schnapps.

Damon shakes his head and fills his glass to the brim, "Stick with bourbon."

She concedes and shakes her empty glass for him to refill.

Damon can't believe he is doing this but he pulls the glass from Bonnie and she yelps like a little kid who has had their candy taken from them, "You've had enough."

"But you won't let me try the Goldschlager though.."

They had spent the last hour going back and forth like this, detouring their conversation away from the bond because he observed the more she discussed their bond the more unfocused she became; like she was lost to where or who she was. She even accidentally referenced Elena as Katherine until he corrected her. He kept refilling her glass, believing she was nervous and as she began to finish off each drink, she became more relaxed and even made him laugh when she recounted her visit with Ms. Stewart and how she now needed a lobotomy.

"You don't need to," He informs, snatching the bottle of bourbon from her grasp, "Come on, judgy, gimme some tips here on how to be someone's friend. I'm only asking so I'll know how when the time comes for me to be one."

She sits up straighter, ready to give him advice, "Well, first, you have to let them order Goldschlager when they ask for it," She starts and he tries to mask the smile on his lips because she's an adorable drunk. Her eyes are hazel and glazed over in the glow of the Budlight neon over them and her hair is mussed from her constantly playing in it because she doesn't know what to do with her hands and her bottom lip is swollen from her sucking it in between her teeth. She continues, "And you have to be there for them, and want their happiness above all, and if they have to throw up you have to hold their hair," She concludes; serious as a heart attack.

Damon grimaces and her stony face crumbles into laughter.

"That's the most important of them all; every girl knows if her friend has to upchuck she has to hold her hair," She reiterates with a tipsy smile.

He's wants to keep the conversation light because they deserve a break but he's burning up with questions over the bond "Bonnie," He says her first name, getting her attention because he rarely uses it, "How much have you seen?"

"Ughh," she groans, her head falling back with her mouth open like she's suddenly bored before bringing her head back to front and center without the smile she had before," Enough," She answers, "But, I'm gonna stick it out for the month, I'm learning my lesson," She states, "Your memories are a lot to carry and I understand why you get plastered all the time, " She laughs, " Because right now I can't see or feel a thing," She closes her drunken eyelids.

Damon frowns at the thought of Bonnie having to bear his past but offers his assistance with an ordeal he wants no part of, "Do you need my help with this?"

She shrugs, "Lucy said if I told you I'd feel better, but she didn't say if I needed to say another spell or anything. She said once I told you, you could unblock yourself to me and then I had to press pause on her because she used words like emotional baggage and sharing…"

He smirks, "Did we need to hold hands while you told me about the bond or something? Sing Kumbaya?"

Her shoulders slump forward, "I think we gotta talk about your memories."

He rubs his forehead, "Is this what you need?" He asks hoping she will say no, because Bonnie was correct; this was the specific reason why he stayed plastered all the time.

She responds with a sigh and he grasps she does need his help.

Taking a swig from his bottle, he gets up from the booth to wriggle his body around, loosening his jaw like he's getting ready for a fight and slides back into the booth and points a finger to Bonnie, "Shoot."

"Um," Bonnie feels weird discussing his life with him, "Well there is one with Talbot and you are..."

Damon didn't anticipate her saying that name and abruptly gestures 'time out'.

She huffs, "You said shoot."

"I know what I said witch," He spits more harshly then how he actually felt, "I wasn't expecting you to bring him up that's all."

Damon hasn't thought about Talbot in seventy years. He was one of those painful memories that he interred so deep inside of him that he had forgotten the man had ever played a part in his life.

"Let's start with another one," He suggests not wanting to unearth Talbot because he can now smell gunpowder and death.

Bonnie is hesitant to go on, "Okay; there is one with a woman with hair like yours," Bonnie knows she's describing his mother and as that sentence registers across Damon's face she realizes he knows it too, but she can't seem to say her relation to him; she feels it will hurt too much, "She's in a cream colored gown in an overstuffed bed and I think its Stefan who is under her arm and you are reading from a book.."

"Go to another memory, Bennett."

She throws her hands up, "We are getting nowhere with this; you can't even try?"

He wants to; especially when he gets a wave over him like he did at the boardinghouse, this time instead of embarrassment it's of fear; she's scared she's going to have to tackle this bond alone.

Damon runs his hand through his hair finally comprehending the magnitude of what's required from him and reaches for her glass and fills it to the top, "Drink up."

BBBBBBBBBB

Damon yanks the seat belt from between the seat and brushes his body over Bonnie, strapping the belt over her lap. Bonnie lost all motor skills from that last drink, "Why do you want to be my friend so badly?" She whispers into the shell of his ear, making his body respond in a way that's more than friendly.

He angles his head; blue eyes burning into green, "What makes you think I'm hard up for your friendship?" He asks back with the click of the belt assuring she is safe.

She licks her lips and Damon can taste her cherry chap stick, "The blood. Your blood is making me crazy, remember?"

He runs his eyes over her before settling in his seat to drive her to her house. They had already discussed he would pick her up before school tomorrow to retrieve her car.

She flips the visor down and looks herself in the mirror and shakes her head, "Why didn't I ask Stefan or Caroline for their blood?" She asks herself.

And Damon can't resist slicing into her, "Because they were too busy wheeling and dealing with Klaus for a witch." He retorts, knowing he hit her heart but she started it with so easily dismissing him.

_Wasn't he the one here with her?_

Bonnie immediately opens the car door and slams it in his face.

He blinks in front of her, "Get back in the car," He demands with his dark eyes taking on their distinct maniacal twitch.

"No," She tries to walk around him but he keeps flashing in her way. She stops short of taking another step because he's making her dizzy, "Leave me here, Damon. I'll call a cab or have my dad come pick me up, but I'm not going anywhere with you," She informs.

Damon doesn't have patience; he wants her in the car and he wants her to do it now. He squeezes her arm and jerks her petite frame to him, "You have ten seconds to get your ass back in the car," He growls, stretching his mouth into a cruel smile.

Bonnie pictures herself pressing a grape between her fingers until the skin breaks and the insides gush out over her nails and Damon buckles; falling to the ground, hands to his head, screaming for her to stop.

She releases the visual because giving Damon aneurysms is making her nauseous; her stomach is clearly unhappy with the copious amount of alcohol sloshing around in her.

Damon is walking back to his car without Bonnie; if she wanted to stay then fuck it, she wouldn't be his problem anymore. He shouts to her as he opens the driver seat door, "You and your holier than thou bullshit, Bonnie. You are gonna catch a nosebleed way up there," He says before asking her what he's afraid to know the answer to, "Is having my blood so horrible?"

His question stuns her. Bonnie sways on her two feet, trying to keep her balance as she catches his want for her to say it wasn't but she can't soothe him, not when he won't even try to help her. She's about to tell him he can 'Go to Hell" when she feels a gurgling burn at the back of her throat. She abruptly bends over, aiming her face to the asphalt and she vomits, splattering bourbon and bile all over her shoes and the bottoms of her jeans. But as she convulses again, she becomes aware that she doesn't have to worry about getting any vomit in her hair because Damon is holding her curls firmly in his hand.

BBBBBBBBBB

Damon parks his car in Bonnie's driveway; her father isn't home so he takes up his spot. Her house is dark, not even a porch light on and it upsets him, more than he can fathom. Bonnie is knocked out next to him; inebriated from the alcohol and exhausted from fighting all day.

He didn't want to argue with her today; not when she had a huge fight with her best friend and got a slap in the face for all her effort by them bringing another witch into the gang. But it was inevitable; he and Bonnie were incapable of being in the same room without getting under each other's skin. It was their special thing; their shared talent of being able to twist the knife into those sore spots.

He opens the passenger door and slides his hands around her waist to throw her limp body over his shoulder. She weighs nothing. Her thighs are warm and her jeans are rubbing his face; her lifeless arms and her hair are hanging over his back as he carries her feeling like a caveman carting his possession with a grunt of _'mine'_. He skims his hand over her ass to get her house keys from her back pocket and she doesn't make a sound.

The house is the same temperature as outside and he walks around in the dark with her saddled on his shoulder until he finds the thermostat and turns on the heat for her comfort. He doesn't need heat; he doesn't need anything humans need to survive.

Damon cracks Bonnie's bedroom door and lays the girl over her bed; unlacing her tennis shoes and peeling off her vomit smelling jeans to reveal toned legs and cotton panties with little flowers and lace. He reminds himself he will use this against her at a later date and he smiles as he folds the bedspread to cover her up and she finally shows life as she rolls over on to her side; giving Damon her back.

The bed dips with his weight as he sits on the edge and he thinks about how funny the world is; it was only last night he was outside her house wishing for her friendship again and here was his chance, here was his chance to show he was worthy.

And that's when he gets another memory that isn't his, it's one that involves a play set made entirely of yellow plastic and a slide in the shape of a tube.

Caroline has a ponytail of coiffed spirals and bosses, "Don't be a baby, Bonnie."

Elena with her forever parted curtain of hair responds, "Don't call her a baby; come on Bonnie."

And Bonnie's soft whimper of a no is a chant; it's the background music to the memory. But Caroline pushes her and she goes down the tube. Her loose chocolate curls frames her face and her eyes are the brightest he has ever seen when she lights up the world with her smile because she makes it to the other end of the slide.

Damon grabs her desk chair and places it at her bedside. He sits with his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles and clears his throat; "That memory, Bonnie," he starts, "The one with Stefan, and the lady, and me. That's my mother you saw and, um, she liked for me to read to her and Stefan at the end of the day," He stops because he gathers the similarities of pulling up to his mother's bedside to tell her a story as he is doing presently with Bonnie.

Bonnie's heart is a slow drum and her eyes are closed but she can hear him and Damon knows she's no longer asleep, merely pretending and he's okay with that because he doesn't want to lose the guts to finish doing this for her.

"She loved the Count of Monte Cristo," Damon says thinking of how they never got to finish it because she died and he never wanted to pick it up after, "It was shipped to us by one of my father's friends and she would have me read to her every night because she was too sick to…"He falters.

Bonnie feels like one feels when their fever breaks; the flood of his emotions draining out so she can breathe, but she grasps he can't continue and that's fine because they were sharing the pain of it together as if he came upon her and lifted some of the weight from her back.

"Thank you," She whispers; her voice small and light, with her back still turned.

He stands, ready to get home and finish off another bottle and numb himself from this evening, "Don't mention it," He says, swiftly bending over the drunken witch, pressing his lips against her forehead.

And he turns off the light.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: This chapter marks the change in the story.

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_Her skin was pallid; cheeks sunken and mouth downturned; but her eyes, her eyes were the blue bud of a flame and her dark hair held on to its life; still thick and curling over her muslin gown. The kerosene lamp lit the nook of the room, glowing over the contents of her nightstand: her grandmother's worn bible, a crystal water decanter and hand-sewn handkerchiefs that hid the blood from her lungs._

_Lily Salvatore's fingertips swept over her eldest son's hand and he inhaled lemon verbena. _

_"Read mama another passage, sweetie," she requested, caressing Stefan's sleeping head in her lap. _

_"Yes ma'm."_

_He had lost his place in the book for he had stopped because she had one of her coughing fits. He was half way out of his chair to go run for Missy, who was cooking in the kitchen, to come check on his mama when she reached for him._

_She smiled at him; the soft lines forming in her skin and he bowed his head to continue reading where he left off, "I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride…."_

Flying over the speed limit, Damon drives the blue Camaro with the windows down, brisk cold air billowing into the car and blowing into the nooks and crannies of his leather jacket, whistling in his ears the cause of the sudden recollection of memories so dear to him that he had refused to play them. The refusal was for different reasons at different points of his existence, at one time, it was from worry that some minutia of a cherished moment would vanish from constant wear, and later, much later, out of terror, because he had kept them crammed and padlocked in his heart for so long that he was terrified of what might come tumbling out.

Rolling his tires slowly over the gravel drive-way, he parks his car behind Matt Donovan's beaten maroon Ford pick-up and Elijah Mikaelson's classic silver Mercedes sedan.

His mouth sours at Elijah being in his home, he slams the car door and zips over to a weary Matt, who is constantly looking over his shoulder, and an irritated Jeremy Gilbert, stomping out the front door, right behind the jumpy Donovan. Both young men frown when Damon stops them from leaving and interrogates them on why the hell was Elijah there.

"Don't tell him anything Damon, he wants Bonnie," Jeremy blurts incoherently, his chest rising and falling, and his hands balling and uncurling rapidly.

Damon squints like he didn't hear Jeremy correctly, "Who wants Bonnie?"

Jeremy punches the passenger door of the truck and curses about originals and how he has to protect Bonnie.

"Are you still crazy, I thought that witch was supposed to cure you," Damon taunts, agitated over the mention of Bonnie.

The young hunter cockily advances on Damon, arms open, asking for a fight like he can actually topple the 170 year old vampire, "All cured, I don't wanna kill my sister anymore," He says with his face in Damon's, "But I can't say the same about the rest of you bloodsuckers."

The kid still has no sense of humor.

With one hand, Damon snatches Gilbert by his neck and lifts him off the ground, "Who. Wants. Bonnie," he says each word as warning that he will snap him like a twig if he doesn't answer him.

Matt sprints to intervene, and reveals for the hard-headed Gilbert, "Klaus has a knife, they think it's the one needed for the cure, but they aren't sure. They want Bonnie to check it out and give them the go-ahead, if it's not the right one, they want her to tell them where to find it."

Gilbert's dangling feet crumble under him as he hits the gravel from Damon dropping him gruffly. "And what makes them think Bonnie knows anything about the cure," Damon asks, his eyes widening from anger, accusing Baby Hunter and Donovan.

Rubbing his throat, Jeremy squares his shoulder as if preparing for round 2, "Ask your brother."

Matt has his ignition key in hand, opening the driver side door, "Stefan volunteered Bonnie." Matt says gesturing to Jeremy to stop trying to pick a fight and get in the truck.

Damon shakes his head, looking on at the boardinghouse with its blown out windows.

"Where's Bonnie?" Jeremy asks, the rage in his voice replaced with concern, "I heard her and my sister got into an argument, is she okay?" He steps in front of the vampire for him to answer him.

Gilbert _loves _the witch. Prior to ingesting Bonnie's blood, Gilbert and the witch's affection for one another had been a source of amusement for Damon. He thought they were cute. Like puppies. But it seems Bonnie's blood implores him to admit that whenever her smile lingered on Gilbert at Scooby meetings, or he caught her in the rearview mirror of his car, reaching for Jeremy's fingers across the seat, he would have to snap a sarcastic remark, and piss her off to remind her and himself that what she and the baby hunter shared was a joke.

Damon smiles and pats Gilbert on the shoulder, "Don't you have school in the morning, Gilbert." Damon says, his boots crunching over shattered window glass, courtesy of his bonded witch.


	5. Chapter 5

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Elijah Mikaelson, in all of his proper glory, is sitting in the Salvatore's shamble of a living room, composed and impervious to their messy lives as he accepts a cup of tea that Elena had brewed upon his request.

Always the gentleman, he thanks her profusely, "When should we expect Ms. Bennett?"

"How 'bout never." Damon responds, sauntering through the middle of their little meeting.

Bottles clack and ice tings against crystal as he prepares a stiff drink, which is following a session of many stiff drinks but with the memories of his dead and gone mother fogging his perception, and the glaring sight of the five floor-to-ceiling holes in his wall, he needs to drink. And as he kills his cocktail, he decides to skip pouring another into his glass, and ducks out of reality straight from the bottle.

"Damon, I was hoping that my visit would not be deprived of your presence," Elijah says, placing the delicate china cup in his hand on a side table.

"And you almost did, 'cause no one told me we had business with you, and frankly I wish someone would have 'cause I would have turned my car around," he says, earning looks around the room and a frustrated sigh from his brother as he stares at the cup and saucer Elijah sat down, with its regal blue hand-painted family crest on the face and he knows it's the one with the chipped lip on the backside, which had belonged to his mother. This isn't a revelation, considering her things were everywhere in the boardinghouse. Like a museum curator, he valued the period furniture, the ornate Persian rugs, and rich oil paintings, and tended to them with detachment, choosing to forget where those possessions had come from.

_The congregation rose and feet stomped in rhythm while he remained slumped on the wooden pew, sweat pooling under his arms and the small of his back. His mama clapped her hands and sang, and Stefan tried to stay on beat, his childish voice repeating after their mother. Damon knew his time was running out before she would tug at his ear to rise and join in on the praise and worship, but he was mad at her, he wanted to go fishing with Talbot, but she insisted her sons accompany her to service since her husband wouldn't set foot in a Baptist church. He glanced up at her, the morning rays casting a halo around her silhouette, like those Catholic pictures of the Virgin Mary his father hung in his study. And her wide mouth, which was open in song, dimmed for a heartbeat at her son, who rolled his eyes at her and folded his arms in protest._

The room pretends like Damon isn't there and resumes their order of business. And Bonnie's name is tossed back and forth over the coffee table between his brother and the original. Stefan wants to ensure Klaus will share the cure. Elijah wants to ensure Klaus has the intended knife for the cure.

Bonnie is needed for both.

As the present conversation taking place is done in hushed tones and craven nods, he thinks about all the discussions they've had, in this very room about using Bonnie, and why this particular time, strategizing the witch makes him feel peculiar. Like he wants to rip Elijah's heart right out of that tailored suit of his if he says her name one more time. And though he has never needed a valid reason to rip out an originals heart, he finds it outlandish for him to feel that way just because they were making a decision on how to save Elena. He never had issue with bellowing for Bonnie's assistance before. Hell, most Scooby meetings were called to order by him starting with, 'Where's Bonnie?'

So why did it bother him now?

He holds the bottle at the neck, carrying it by his side, giving side-way glances at Stefan and Elena over on the chesterfield. And he interrupts their negotiating by taking a seat on the edge of the coffee table in front of the polished original. He casually brushes shards of glass off the table and onto the floor, "I hate to tell you this Elijah," he starts with a wide smile, "But Bonnie doesn't know about any knife. I know sucks, right, but that's why we have Elphaba on our side," He says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to Daphne waiting in the foyer, "So there is no point in us bringing up Bonnie," he says, leaning over and narrowing his eyes, "Are we clear?"

Elijah affects his brow like he's wounded by Damon's threat, "We come in peace, Damon," he says smoothly, "My brother is content with the exchange, our witch for your spell, and the cure will be split between Ms. Gilbert and my brother. We are confident the knife we possess is the one required but we would like for Ms. Bennett to give a yay or nay, nothing more, we can even meet here on your territory if you are apprehensive over her wellbeing.

"What does your brother want with the cure anyway and why isn't he here himself?" Damon asks, turning up his bottle for another gulp to deal with Elijah.

"I don't meddle in my brother's private matters, I only come as his messenger as my brother is indisposed dealing with business affairs in New Orleans."

A vice-like grip, belonging to Stefan, is clutching Damon's shoulder. "There are other witches, I'm sure we can find one who is familiar with this knife. Let me walk Elijah and Daphne out and we can discuss it further, "Stefan says, ending Damon's investigation.

And an original, a witch and a brooding vampire walk out of the living room and leave him with a despondent Elena who was abnormally without an opinion during the meeting. Damon sits in the empty space on the other end of the couch, and although she is making no noise indicative of the act, he knows she is crying.

He offers her his bottle and she shakes her head and says, "I'm so sick of crying."

Usually, this would be where he would slide over the divide and wrap his arms around Elena, kiss her forehead and have her lay her troubles on him, but he's disappointed and stays where he is, "Your emotions are all over the place, you're a vampire now," he says without affection, as they both gaze at the crackle of fire in the hearth.

And after some time, the hall grand-father clock strikes the hour, filling the boardinghouse with its mechanical melody, and Elena murmurs, "I don't want to be cured, Damon."

_She_ _was smoothing out white bed sheets over a clothesline, clothes pins clamping down over damp cloth. The cool breeze blew against the sheets and through her hair and she laughed with Missy, who picked up the empty basket and headed back to the house. _

_He had tackle and pole in hand as he passed her following Missy. She hadn't said one word to him since church, which was fine with him but he wanted to tell her he was off to the river so she wouldn't send Ezekiel looking for him, "Talbot and I are going to the river to fish," He said while walking, not bothering for her reply._

_She hooked a finger into his suspender, pulling him back to her, holding his chin in her hand, "Don't be late for supper," she warned with a grin, and he took her good mood as his chance to ask her why she dragged him to church with her when she knew he hated it there._

_She titled her head with her hand over her brow to block out the sun, "Because I need you to believe in miracles."_

Damon picks at the label on the bottle, disbelieving Elena had rejected what he had believed was the very thing holding her back from a future with him, her mortality. And he is elated, he wants to devour her on the couch and fantasizes about the look is brother will have on his face when he comes back in the house from his cloak and dagger talk with Elijah to find Elena has chosen him. And Damon looks her dead in the eye and admits, "I don't want you to be cured either."

And when she looks relieved, thankful for his honesty, he recognizes she wants the devouring, but he doesn't pull her close. He can't. Because he's not solely thinking of Elena, and if this is supposed to be the grand moment where he gets the girl, then he believes he should be captivated, after all, he is a dark romantic somewhere between his useless liver and heart. But for the first time, at that specific moment, even with Elena giving him a smidgen of hope, he's not thinking of her. Nope. He's trapped in thoughts of a certain little drunk witch across town, and how she made it possible for an asshole vampire to recollect his self from his past and taste the bittersweet from his memories without the poison.

Elena bolts from the couch and out the living room, jilted and confused by Damon's lack of passion, and he's confused too, because Elena is all he ever wanted, and all he can do is blame Bonnie. She had did this. Albeit by accident, but that only intensifies his worry about what else will change in him through this bond with the witch.

He successfully peels the label and rolls it up like a tiny scroll and stuffs it in the bottle, and whispers to himself while shaking his head, "Bonnie Fucking Bennett."


	6. Chapter 6

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The blare of BUUUUNNNNNNG, BUUUUUNNNG rattles her hung-over skull, and she blindly knocks over bottles of nail polish and a framed picture of a young grinning Sheila dressed in white satin for her wedding day, as she hits the snooze button.

Opening her eyes is a problem because her room is flooded with sunlight and she wonders why the fuck are her curtains open.

She braves one eye.

Then another.

And immediately shuts both and groans, pressing her elbow over her eyesight even with her closed lids. She can't have too much protection. Especially when the sun is shining like it's about to pour two scoops of raisins on her house.

Rolling over on to her side, one floppy arm hanging off the bed, she has her mouth flat on the mattress, peering with one eye on the fuchsia gorilla Jeremy had won at a carnival for her last spring, and the stuffed animal's sneer feels like its directed to her, _'And you couldn't save her.'_

She instinctively pulls the covers over her head, remembering Elena's words, expecting a surge of tears, but she doesn't feel a thing.

She's empty.

Wrung-out.

"It's about time," a masculine voice says, bored, followed by an exaggerated sigh.

Bonnie springs out of bed, sputtering a curse, stumbling over the fallen desk chair and stubs her foot on her dresser. She sucks air through her teeth with a scrunched brow, fighting the urge to rub out the sting, "What are you doing here?!" She cries, her own voice resounding in her head, making it pound harder.

Damon is calmly lying on his back, taking up the corner space of her bed against the wall, where she usually lines up her decorative pillows before she goes to bed, but they are tossed at the foot of the bed, where Damon has his freshly shined black boots flat on the carpet. "Waiting for you to wake up," he snorts, glancing up at her and then at his watch, and he snaps his fingers, "Get with it Bennett, I should have been on the road an hour ago, "he says, putting his arm back under his head, eyes turned to the ceiling.

"How'd you get in here? Did my dad see you?" She leans in to whisper as if her Dad were walking by her bedroom door.

Irritated by her constant questioning, he zips from the bed, hovering over her and he jingles her keys in her face, "Your Dad is at his, 'too hot', for him girlfriend's house, and left a note on the fridge that he's gonna be traveling until next week; I read it when I carried your drunk ass inside last night. Now that we're done with 21 questions can you shower and dress so we can leave", he says coldly and then looks her up from head to toe with a raised eyebrow and she wonders what the hell he is looking at and realizes she's only wearing her panties and her dirty sweater from yesterday.

She yanks her sweater down to the top of her thighs, "I can do without your stank attitude, Damon," She says, thinking only six more months, and she'll have a life where she doesn't have to crack open a grimoire and cast a spell, never have to answer a 3am call ravaged with dread that she won't be able to protect a best friend, six freaking months and 27 more days and she won't have to deal with a dick of a vampire who is being more of a dick than usual this morning, but the bond makes her concerned, "Did something happen with Elena? Is that what's bothering you?" she asks, biting her bottom lip, anxious for his response.

_Ezekiel spotted Damon first. He was hiding, huddled in soggy, mildewed clothes, camouflaged by the tall sunburned grass in the woods behind the plantation. He had been traveling along the overgrown 'secret' trail he had used as a child. He should have known the old man would have found him; Ezekiel knew the trail well, he had walked the path plenty when Damon was a child to retrieve him from the river and return him to his worried Mama. _

_"We thought you was dead, Mistah Damon."_

_And Damon would have agreed with the man but he was too weak to talk, too weak to even think, he had been trudging home from camp for over four days and even wading through the river, making certain no soldiers, Confederate or Union, saw him and killed him on the spot._

_Ezekiel wrapped an arm around his young master, lifted him from the brush, and snuck him into the mansion unnoticed. He solicited the aid of Missy, who was in her bed asleep, when Ezekiel knocked on her door to show what he found in the woods. She had made the sign of the cross and proclaimed Damon to be a ghost but assisted Ezekiel in safely hiding Damon in the attic despite her fear of the walking dead._

_They fed him, bathed him, clothed him, and he never said a word. _

_"We gonna have to tell Mastah Salvatore he up here," Ezekiel worriedly said to Missy in a hushed tone._

_"I'll wake him," The mahogany-skinned woman volunteered with her head high, gathering her skirts to deliver the news to Giuseppe that his son was alive._

_Ezekiel talked about the plantation to Damon: how the cotton was piling high because it wasn't selling, about the recent runaway of several slaves, some Damon knew since a child, some bought while he was at war and of the town men constantly coming to meet with Master Salvatore to whisper in the study. Damon listened as he stared out the cob-webbed attic window, catching his unshaven reflection; a reflection of a stranger. The only recognition he made that he was paying attention to Ezekiel was when he turned to face the man when he mentioned Katherine's name, "And Miss Katherine has been helping with Mistah Stefan; he's been mighty sad thinking you was dead."_

_Missy returned to the attic with Giuseppe and instead of being ecstatic that his eldest son hadn't died, he was angry, very angry._

_"Talbot at least had the decency to die and not show up here and disgrace his family as you have done. Do you know what they're doing to deserters and what they'll do if they find you here?" Giuseppe seethed._

_Ezekiel bowed his head and Missy gritted her teeth._

_All three waited for Damon; for the Damon who would apologize profusely to his father, even if he had no reason to apologize._

_Damon slid his boots closer to his father; his disposition docile, broken, as he leaned in to Giuseppe and spoke for the first time since hearing of his friend's death, "I don't want to bring disgrace to the family name; I'll leave within a month; I will travel west and stay gone forever", he stated smoothly. _

_His father met his eyes and agreed, relieved he would soon be rid of Damon and anxious to leave the attic, but then Damon startled the threesome by quickly grabbing Giuseppe roughly by his neck, pulling the outraged man closer to him, "But if you ever mention Talbot like that again," he warned; his eyes maddened by heartbreak and rage at the man wrenching at his hands, straining to get free, "I will kill you."_

"Yes. Among other things," he mumbles, moving to her chest of drawers, rummaging through her undergarments. He says 'hello' to his mini me doll by patting it on the head before searching for the frilly delicate things out of the cotton, and pulls out a red and white polka-dot bra, "I got a witch who won't get dressed so I can go inspect some dead bodies in Nokesville and then drive all the way to Florida just to scope out a professor so Liz can feel comfortable about bringing him on the case," He says to himself because Bonnie is lost to what he is talking about.

"Fine, take me to Jeremy, and I'll be outta your hair," she says, burdened by his memory, and ignoring the meddlesome proven fact that he really is her cure.

"Jeremy's fine. Daphne fixed him," He states, throwing the bra onto her bed. He's decided to assemble a proper outfit for her.

"Good," She says trying to mask the fact her feelings are hurt, "Good for them," She hugs herself and bites her lip, "That's good right?," She asks, "What am I saying, of course that's good, I'll have to call Jeremy later and check on him."

He casually leans on the closet door; his mouth swished to one side as he examines each piece of her clothing, "What is up with all the earth tones? And sweaters?" He asks blithely, like they had been discussing her wardrobe the entire time.

Still stretching out her sweater to cover her bottom, she walks over to the closet and makes a face at the vampire, "What are you doing?"

"Helping you get dressed."

"I can pick out my own clothes, Damon."

"But you shouldn't," he grimaces holding up her favorite navy wool duster, "How many cardigans does a witch need?" he asks handing her a dress she hasn't worn since the 9th grade and doesn't think she can fit into anymore. The dress is tight and black and she can't sneeze in it without flashing someone.

"Um, you must have me confused if you think I would wear this to school," she says, yanking the dress from his hand.

"You're not going to school," he says as a matter of fact, pulling out from her top shelf her cheerleader bag with her name in pink cursive stitching on the front, "You're coming with me."

She presses both of her hands on either side of her temples because her head feels like a freight train is running through it. "Damon, the only place I'm going with you is to my car, then you are gonna act like you never heard of a Bennett while I finish out the rest of my senior year," She orders, forgetting to hide her little panties, earning a genuine smile from Damon.

He wags a finger in her face and she tries to catch it to snap it off if she could, but he's too quick. "I thought you might say something like that," He expresses with false disappointment," And to be honest, I'm confused because we're bonded," He makes the word bonded sound like a sexual act as he narrows his eyes, "Doesn't it make you want to do what I say?"

She affects her mouth in revulsion, "It's not that kind of bond. Thank God."

He shrugs, "So the bond loses points for not making you at my beck and call, but I'm okay with that," He says, turning his hand to acknowledge himself and he hands her his iPhone from his jean pocket, "Girls are being murdered with this ridiculous tattoo on them. I thought we could move your bleeding heart's attention to solve this mystery and get you your fix of saving the day."

"These girls are from here?"

"Yep."

Bonnie's returns the phone to Damon and exhales a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. She's tired of looking at dead kids.

"Is this what you were bribing me to help you with yesterday?" She asks, searching for the truth in him.

"Yes," he says, and he encroaches on what is left of her personal space to where she is overwhelmed by the scent of stale bourbon. And he takes one finger, barely touching her as he traces over her jawline and gently juts her chin upward, those cold blue eyes of his fixating on her, "So whaddaya' say Judgy, you and me, team badass, fighting questionable evil again and what not. We can even get you a leather jacket if you want."

"_Cat got your tongue, mistah?"_

_She was gorgeous. _

_Hair spun of black silk, skin blended of coffee with a helping of milk, and he flung one long hot-iron induced curl from her creamy shoulder, "I don't own any cats," he answered, with her in his lap, gesturing to the other men at the poker table that he would not be joining them for another game._

_After threatening his father, Damon freed himself from the confinement of the attic, looking for Katherine, looking for Stefan, both were not to be found and he saddled up his horse and rode to the last place he thought he would want to visit since the one time he was there all he did was roam the parlor, observing everyone else's good time while he drank warm beer and counted the minutes it took for Talbot to finish up with the red-head upstairs._

_The striking beauty laughed at Damon and he stared into her green-eyes, reminiscent of a feline, and he said, "But I might've been inclined to possess one of the creatures if I had ever seen one with eyes as lovely as yours."_

"_Aren't you a charming devil?" she said and asked if Damon wanted to see her bedroom, and she pointed her finger skyward._

_He had stayed with the whore for a week, locked away in her sparse room with no windows, smashed on bourbon, sex and intermittent drags from her opium habit. The Lord had made the world in seven days, and Damon had managed to obliterate his in the same amount of time. Talbot's memorial was to be held on a Tuesday, and the day came and went, unbeknownst to Damon who had stopped caring what day it was, he only knew if it was day or night by the piano playing in the parlor below. And when he woke up on the eighth day, reaching for the girl with the black hair, it was Stefan who acknowledged him at the foot of the bed holding clean, pressed clothes. He had informed him he had missed Talbot's memorial and it was time to go home, and for him to not worry about the girl. He had already paid her._

Bonnie's heart beats in her throat, echoing over the silence between her and Damon as she takes in that Damon had begun the practice of shutting off his emotions long before being made vampire, and she's bombarded with over a 100 years' worth of flashes throughout his existence and his recurring question- what happens when someone can't deal with the pain?

And Bonnie thinks of her own life, specifically as a witch, and how her magic has not exactly been beneficial. She feels her magic has been a patch for recurring battles at best and a detriment to her life at worst.

It was because of magic she was a loser.

Lost a mother. Lost a grandmother. _Lost a best friend._

What happens to a witch who can't deal anymore, she thinks and there is a realization about her blood bond with Damon, and that is intimate knowledge leads to intimacy whether you sign up for the ride or not. Generally, an eighteen year old Black girl from Mystic Falls doesn't know much about the life of a former wealthy white plantation owner turned vampire who is also a consummate lothario, but she does, she has intimate knowledge of Damon Salvatore, through a fluke of her magic, she has on some level _**become**_ Damon Salvatore. And inside this memory of his, she no longer feels like a foreigner lost in a city where no one speaks her language, he speaks her language, and he's telling her it's okay for her to want to shut it down too.

"I'm done practicing magic. As of today I'm a regular girl." She tests out her decision on the one who was most adamant about treating her like an on-demand genie.

"Fine, "he nods, "You can read can't you? You can research on the way down there the significance of Falcons to your people," he says, crouching down to unzip her bag and fill it with the clothes he's picked out but not without admiring his eye-level view of her in her underwear, he's pleased that she's stopped caring to hide.

She scrunches her brow, "My people?"

"You know, the juju wielding people." His quip receives a smile and he rolls his eyes because only with her could it be this hard, "It's settled then, you're coming with, no magic required."

There is an unexpected flicker in Bonnie's chest; it spreads over her skin and flames from need.

He wanted her with him.

Even though she had stated that she wouldn't be anyone's magician; he still wanted her to tag along. And she sighs and points her finger to the door, "Wait for me downstairs."

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Thank you to the readers who were so gracious to read this story again after it was deleted. I had lost my muse for this fiction and I'm trying to get my mojo back and finish it because the characters nag me every day for not writing.

So special thanks to: Mrs. Anitra (seriously, heartfelt thank you) Leni18, Esmeralda312, Faire Insiginas, Babyshan211, Voicegrl, Therm33, Icelnu, CiciG, PrettyinPurple86


	7. Chapter 7

Damon tries to concentrate on the road, at the painted white lines on the asphalt, the swathes of bare limbed trees and wooden fences blurring by but he can't help eyeing the witch.

She turned his front seat into her own office. There are books open on the floorboard at her feet, she has his cell phone on the seat between them, she has it open to the tattoos of the dead girls and the hard-copy photos of the girl's gashes are strewn over his dashboard. The corner of her mouth is caught between her teeth, and her hair is still damp and piled in a messy bun on top of her head. Her camel colored coat is almost the same color as she is, covering up yet another sweater and her jeans are not jeans at all he notices, but some kind of legging, and her converses are grey.

Damon wonders how many sneakers does the little witch actually own.

Annoyed from a lack of sleep, he stops himself from staring at the girl, and ponders life's complexities, like if he's packed enough blood bags for this unexpected trip, and if not, how hard it's gonna be to hunt for fresh human blood with Bonnie in tow. He frowns. If the need arises, he _could_ ditch her at a library or a museum for a few hours, and while she salivates over sappy-ass poetry or some rare artifact -that no one gives a fuck about but her because she's the only one besides the archaeologist who cares to know the significance- he could get lost, and find a snack. Yep, that's what he will do, and then he thinks he probably would have brought more than enough blood if he wasn't sharing his sacred stash with Elena. And the doppelganger's doe eyes replace the painted white lines, and the swathes of naked trees and his annoyance grows because he royally fucked up with her last night, and she wasn't bothering with answering his calls or texts or his incessant knocking at the Gilbert residence front door this morning. He just wanted to tell her he loves her, as much as he did the day before, and the day before that, and that he was _happy?_ (It's been a long time since he's been able to identify himself with that emotion, and it sounds awkward, like a dashing male vampire version of Nell, he's mentally sounding it out. HAAAAA PPPPPPEEEE), at her decision to stay on the winning team, and how her choice will protect her bestie from the Mikaelson clan. With the doppelganger on the brain, he snatches his phone from Bonnie's research pile, "You're done with this, right, "he says, not caring for her reply while he rapidly texts, **'No cure, no witch.**' And he slips his phone into the same pocket with his flask and he offers the witch a tightlipped smile when she tells him she wasn't finished examining the photos on his phone, and she huffs, and he's determining if he should tell her about the whole business with the knife, but again, he realizes he hasn't slept in 48 hours, and even though his physical make-up does not require sleep, he still likes the mental break, and not having that eight hours of nothing is not a good start when dealing with her, with her he has to be on his toes.

_"Come on Bonnie; you gonna make me late for church, standing out here all day with you," Sheila Bennett said to her granddaughter who looked defeated at the piece of paper in the metal bowl on the patio table._

_She and Bonnie were in her backyard on an early Sunday morning; the grass was dewy and the sun wasn't fully awake and both women were still in their house robes._

_Bonnie shook her head and pleaded with Sheila, "I can't."_

_Sheila clicked her tongue, "Yes you can; you are a Bennett," She said, squaring her shoulders and she added more softly, "You've done it before and you can do it again."_

_Bonnie stared at the torn scrap of paper with her full name written in beautiful script. Her grams explained it was symbolic._

_"You know what happened last time I did this."_

_Sheila brushed her hand over Bonnie's hair, "I know baby and I'm gonna teach you how to control that; your dad didn't want you to learn but now it's time you come into who you were meant to be."_

_Bonnie, encouraged by Sheila's words, closed her eyes and released the blocked voice inside of her that had a habit of telling her she wasn't like other girls._

_When she opened her eyes the paper was on fire. _

_And her Grams grinned from ear to ear_.

Damon is chockfull of pride as if he was the one who started the fire. He glances at Bonnie and his lips part, eager to talk to her about her memory and he stops himself immediately because of its connection to her grandmother. And more decisively because of his connection to her grandmother no longer being alive.

He bullishly knocks the book out of her lap, "Bennett," he says her name, genuinely smiling because she didn't expect his antics and she has her surprised face, a rarity he enjoys, and once he senses that she isn't popping blood vessels, he adds, "If you are going to be someone's road trip companion then the first rule is you're supposed to keep the driver entertained. " He states like she broke a venerated tenet listed under the chapter titled, "Important Shit", in the Damon Salvatore handbook.

Sighing deeply and picking the hardback up from the floorboard, she flips the pages to where she was studying, "Considering we are driving to meet with the Sheriff of Nokesville because he found four dead girls under the age of 25 that had the symbol of a Falcon on their wrists, I figured I it might be important if I could tell the Sheriff why the hell these girls picked a tattoo of a falcon, when they could have had a dragon, or three sixes, or YOLO." She says, not troubling to look up from her reading.

He snorts, "Someone is a smarty-pants."

"I'll take that as a compliment," She says, smoothing her hand over a glossy picture of an Egyptian winged falcon, puzzled by the meaning of the bird to the women.

"Not worried I might've lied, and that what I'm really doing is kidnapping you?" He says with a slight smirk.

"Nope," she says, flipping a page, "We'll be back soon," she states as a matter of fact before raising her head up from the book and smiling, "You can't stand to be away from Elena."

At the mention of Elena, Damon thinks it's too quiet in the car and turns on the radio.

Music fills the enclosed space and Damon continues to badger Bonnie to talk, "Music sucks now. Give me the Stones, the Ramones, not this. What is this, where they make their voices sound like computers?" He asks, sounding like he should be shaking a cane at some kids playing on his lawn.

"Auto-tune."

Bonnie shuts the book and gathers the photos because Damon isn't going to let her ride with him in peace. "Who are The Ramones?" She asks, organizing the material in the order she wants to review later when they have reached a destination where she can get a moment alone from Damon. And she casually glimpses out the window, and spots a lone mailbox ahead that she has seen before; the metal box is painted yellow, with a life-size red rooster perched on the rounded top.

He flings his hands from the steering wheel and makes a face like she told him Stefan was the sexier brother, "You've got to be fucking kidding me. They are only the first Punk band. I can't believe this."

Barreling by the rooster mailbox standing guard at the end of a dirt country road, Bonnie wonders when the last time she spoke to her mother, and she figures it had to be a month ago, and the conversation hadn't been anything notable, just the typical how are you, the kind of polite talk you have with strangers, but with strangers it doesn't hurt because they aren't your mother, and they aren't supposed to have something meaningful to say.

Bonnie turns at the silver knob of the car radio. Damon's car is a classic and does not have the technology for her to hook up her i-pod. She searches for another station, watching the red marker slide over white numbers, picking up static until she lands on a distinctive voice crooning about feeling like a virgin.

She expects Damon to balk again about the music so she's set to twist the knob before Damon makes a noise for her to stop.

She raises an eyebrow, "Really?"

Damon answers her by bursting into song in cue with the chorus; his voice is straining to keep up with the exaggerated high-pitch tone he's singing in.

Bonnie really wishes she was on whatever the hell he was on.

He looks at her, "Don't judge; she's the queen of pop. And God, she was super-hot when this came out," He says, closing his eyes briefly, lost in a memory of a young Madonna writhing around on a stage in lingerie.

Bonnie doesn't share his musing, "Not a fan," she says, angling her head, nose pressed against the glass watching the mailbox grow smaller and smaller and then eventually disappear.

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Sheriff Williams does not like Damon Salvatore.

The older man thinks he is a pretty good judge of character, which is why he believes he's excelled in law enforcement, and in the ten minutes Damon has been meeting with him outside the hospital morgue, he's concluded that this pasty white boy ain't right in the head.

"Tell me Sheriff, do you know if these girls were witches?" Damon asks nonchalantly.

"Witches?" The sheriff repeats slowly with his forehead crinkling.

"Yeah, you know, witches, bippity boppity, toil and trouble, they like to go in the woods at night and dance around naked," the vampire says, with his arms folded, smiling at a petite blonde nurse walking down the hall.

Bonnie rolls her eyes to the back of her head and gives Damon cut-eye before telling the irritated Sherriff, "You have to excuse him, he's brain-dead," she quips with a serious face, "Will the doctor let us see the girls?"

The Sheriff doesn't like Damon but he thinks Bonnie is a very sweet girl, and wonders what she is doing mixed up with this boy, and if he wasn't scared out his wits over what his team saw out in the woods, he would have sent them on their way and given the young lady some advice to pick better boyfriends, but Liz said this guy was the guy, and she had warned him he was nonconventional, but he would be able to help them.

"Let me go get Sammy, "The sheriff says tipping the brim of his cowboy hat to Bonnie and then says to Damon, "Boy, you ain't wrapped too tight are you?"

Damon grins wide, "I'd have to agree with you, sir."

The sheriff leaves to get the doctor to admit them into the morgue.

Damon leans to Bonnie's ear, "I get the feeling that this guy doesn't like me."

She smiles, "You think?"

Damon looks affronted, "Hey, I'm here doing his town a favor, we could be half way to Florida, and he's protective over you for some reason," He says, bothered by the Sheriff's concern over Bonnie; he thinks it's because she's her and he's him, and they don't fit. And he's staring again, this time at the tender space behind her ear where she keeps trying to tuck a curl, and he's thinking maybe they don't fit, but for the time being, they have this bond, and he blurts, "Why were you scared to start the fire with your Grams?"

"You saw that?" She asks, squinting at Damon and invading his personal space, just the way he likes to do. But her arms are folded and her worried face is mere inches from his as she searches in his blue eyes, "You really want to know why?"

He nods, swimming in green, resisting the impulse to untuck her curl because that would mean too much, "Why were you scared?"

And her skin prickles as the want from him washes over her, the bond tightening bit by bit between them, "Because I'm always scared." She admits before they are interrupted by the Sheriff and Sammy the doctor.

Sammy has dark circles under his almond shaped eyes, and he's greying prematurely at his temples, "Are they both detectives?" He asks sarcastically, eyeing Bonnie specifically and then holding up a pass key over an infrared light beside the door, "Be warned that what we are about to see is not pretty ," He says to everyone in a somber whisper, his eyes traveling back to Bonnie.

Bonnie is the last to enter behind the group, and she sees four stainless steel tables on wheels in the middle of the room, each table had a white sheet covering its content, silhouetting the face and figures of the women.

Sammy unceremoniously pulls the sheet off each cadaver, one by one, like some horrible game-show host unveiling the grand prize are four dead girls.

"Exsanguinated," Sammy confirms to the faces in the room, and then beckons for them to come closer to the first girl and with bare hands he rolls her neck to the side and points to two distinct fang marks, "This is why we asked you to come, Mr. Salvatore," He says with weary eyes on Damon.

Damon gives Bonnie a look and she can hear her heartbeat race in her ears.

"What animal do you think could have done this?" The Sheriff asks, taking off his hat and gripping it in his hands.

Damon smirks and with his devil-may-care attitude says, "I'd say vampire, but since they don't exist ….."

The two men hang on Damon's each word as Bonnie thinks about how many times she could have ended up like these girls, cold and dead, while some vampire made jokes about how she died. And the fortuitous circumstance that she isn't like them just reaffirms her decision that she should be done with magic.

Her brow furrows as she looks on at one of the girls, the tattooed marking across her tan skin and Bonnie is overwrought with guilt for showing up to their deaths with the kind of their killer.

She wraps her hand over the girl's wrist, covering the tattoo behind her fingers, and while mouthing a small prayer for the dead, she closes her eyes, and is blinded by a ball of light.


	8. Chapter 8

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"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Damon yells, beating the steering wheel with each word, as he and Bonnie exit the Nokesville County Hospital parking lot. He snorts and shakes his head, "Fucking great, I had hoped it was the fucking furballs that were picking off the witches, but now we gotta consider vampires," He vents, vexed by the repercussions that were sure to follow from the killing of witches.

Bonnie is rubbing the pad of her finger over the curvature of her mouth, dreamy, and gazing out the windshield at the winter-time Sun, and contemplating how useless the star is to them at this time of year, and how it suspends over them, pale yellow and gleaming, and completely deprived of warmth, like an orb of lemon ice.

"Earth to Bonnie, kind of having a meltdown here, we need to find out why the supes are trying to kill your folks," he says, gesturing for her attention.

Turning her head slowly, she looks like she just realized she is in a car with him, "Why do you keep saying they are witches?"

And they are witches.

Bonnies knows this.

After she clutched the girl's wrist, she felt the buzz of magic, like touching an old TV set after you've been rubbing your feet over the carpet. Electric. It remained after the soul departed. And Bonnie had prayed for the soul, thus wakening the magic, alerting the source it was now attached to a husk, and it rushed out of the girl's bones and leapt into Bonnie.

And behind closed eyelids, Bonnie saw the sun, not the material sun, like the one currently looming in the ashen sky, but the sentiment of what the sun represents - joy, life, love - they were all amplified by the magical amalgamation of her and Damon's plasma flowing inside of her for that brief moment before she opened her eyes.

"Woods? Check. Crazy Chicks? Check. Pissed-off supes? Check. Did I mention crazy chicks?" He says, his eyes narrowing as he tosses a smirk her way.

"You're right," She mutters, as they double back down the road that will take them past the rooster mailbox.

"I'm sorry, what did you say," He says, holding his ear, his grin meeting his lobes.

"I said I'm starving, let's stop there," She points to a shopping center of a restaurant and an attached gas station.

He drives the car into the sparse parking lot in front of the restaurant and tells her to go inside. He is going to drive up for a half a mile and circle back to meet up with her in a bit. She's ready to gripe when he explains by pulling out a blood bag.

She goes into the old-fashioned diner that is practically empty but for the elderly couple in a corner vinyl booth and a mother with her young daughter sitting at a checkered-face table in the middle of the restaurant.

Bonnie sits at a wobbly table by the window with the word, 'Dora's Diner, etched in the glass so she could watch absolutely nothing passing by.

Her phone vibrates, screaming at her to check her phone, but she knows the constant buzzing of her phone is not from her Dad or Lucy because both would think she was at school right now. She's uneasy about ignoring her phone and bounces her leg while the salt and pepper shakers begin to levitate from the table. She plays with a fork; flipping it over and over in one hand and pressing her thumb down on the metal prongs until it hurts.

"Well if that isn't a tall drink of water I don't know what is."

The shakers clang on the table without breaking and Bonnie glares up at the waitress, who didn't see Bonnie's accidental magic trick as she stands at her table holding two glasses of water.

Bonnie follows the waitress's line of sight to see what she is gawking at.

"He's not that tall," She says, observing Damon on the other side of the glass, pumping gas, unaware of his audience; his signature impish façade missing and replaced with a seriousness she hadn't seen in real life only in his memories.

His blue eyes widen and his eyebrows rise with recognition when he spots her and she feels weird, like she had been waiting for him longer than the ten minutes he was gone, like how you feel when you are away from home for a very long time and finally arrive to collapse in your own bed.

"Hello," he purrs, acknowledging the brunette waitress as he slides into the chair across from Bonnie.

The waitress is smitten and her pie-face flushes with blood, "Hi," she says after what Bonnie thought was long enough for her think of something other than 'Hi', like maybe asking them what they wanted to order.

Damon loves to play with his food; he's always enjoyed the way the opposite sex responds to him. His wide mouth transforms into a seductive smile when he asks, "Can this place be any deader?"

Bonnie chokes on the ice she was crunching on from her glass.

The waitress and Damon look over at her and she waves her hand for them to pay her no mind.

Pie-face is determined on overlooking she's a waitress, "Most people are at work, but if you two are stickin' around there's gonna be a party startin' at nine at Big Roy's out on highway 90."

Damon slaps his hands flat on the table like that was the best thing he's heard all day, "You hear that Bonnie; there is going to be a party at Big Roy's tonight," He says; his eyes glinting with a mischievous glee.

Bonnie offers a fake smile and asks politely for scrambled eggs, dry toast and a cup of coffee.

Damon bends his neck to ogle the waitress's ass when she leaves and snaps back in his seat to face Bonnie without all the smiles and eye-sex, "We aren't on a schedule; we could take in some local color before burning off."

"I'm not trying to hang out in Nokesville so you can get laid."

"Who said anything about getting laid? He leans in over the table, "You know what your problem is?"

She pours cream into the coffee until it crests the edge, "Pass me two Splendas."

"You don't know how to have fun," Hey says, tossing her two yellow packets.

Bonnie's spoon clinks the ceramic mug with each stir. "And you think you do? What you get yourself into isn't fun, Damon, its distractions and then regret."

He recoils, looking at her like she's the one who's crazy, "Isn't that what fun is? A pleasurable distraction from our shitty reality."

She sips her coffee and the white-haired wife of the old couple across the diner catches her eye and sends Bonnie a smile; Bonnie's upper lip quirks back as she contemplates Damon's response. He has over a 100 years of experience on her and there are a lot of questions she doesn't have an answer to; she's at the age where she is just starting to question and learn for herself, but she feels like whatever Damon says is the truth_ must _be false.

"Are you still a virgin?"

It's her turn to blush.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Distractions. Anyone fucking on a regular basis wouldn't be so opposed to some fun."

"Does everything have to relate back to sex for you?"

"Yes. Who deflowered you, young lady?"

She hides her face in her mug and Damon gets an image of brown floppy hair in an inexperienced face, and her swiping the hair out his puppy-dog eyes to say she was ready and then a whisper of an 'I love you.'

He affects his mouth like he consumed some poisonous blood and holds his hand up to stop her from replying. "No need to answer that; I got it."

She laughs and he lets her eat.

Her eggs are more sunny-side up than scrambled; she moves them around her plate before eating the inside of the toast, leaving the crusts in the shape of a triangle on her plate.

A flask appears in his hand from somewhere in that jacket of his and he throws it upward against his mouth without a care of being seen, "Okay, Bennett, tell me what you know about Falcons from all that book learning you were doing in the car."

She wipes her hands and clears her throat, "Um, well the Falcon plays a role in a lot of cultures, it's kind of hard for me to narrow it down to what it might mean for the tattoo. For instance, in one religion, the falcon represents a Holy Spirit and for some tribes they are a companion of hunters."

"Hunters," He says, bobbing his head slowly, like they have just figured out the culprit.

Shrugging she says, "Could be, but if they are, they aren't very good at it."

A small smile creeps onto Damon's face, "Back there, in the morgue, you were doing your thing," he says, wiggling his fingers to indicate her magic, "Whad'ya pick up?"

She shakes her head, "I didn't pick up anything," She says, defensively.

"Liar," He mouths without sound, his lips opening and curving around the word.

"And if I did see something?" She says, scooting up to the table and whispering, "It doesn't matter because I'm not practicing anymore, or next you'll be trying to make my death look like a poisonous snake bite," She says, judging him for compelling the Doctor and Sheriff to accept that lie about the girls' murder.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Bennett, I'm not asking you to do a spell, but do you really think you can live this fantasy you have of being a regular human? Look around." He says twirling his hand in the air, "You and I aren't like them. We're different, we're the other." Damon's lip moves to a side smile and he squints at her until the blue of his eyes darken, "And that makes us special," He says, drawing out the last word, "You think grandpa back there doesn't wish he could turn back his clock and re-live his youth or the mother over there doesn't wish she knew a spell to make her brat go to sleep when she wants her to?

She excuses herself to the restroom because her decision is not up for discussion, and she hears him as she walks off, "You're a witch, Bennett. Be a witch."

In the restroom, she dawdles, throws water on her face because she's upset and crying isn't an option and neither is ripping the doors off the stalls. She thinks about what her grandmother would say to her until the old lady comes in and she pretends to wash her hands.

Bonnie pushes the bathroom door to leave when the old lady says kindly, exiting out the stall, "It'll get better dear. My husband and I fought all the time in the beginning."


	9. Chapter 9

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Their argument traveled with them, the typical friction between the pair had escalated when she came back to the diner table, and he asked, "What's the big deal, Bonnie? I said you didn't have to do magic."

And she snatched her bag from the chair, ready to stomp down the aisle when he caught her arm and pulled her back to him, making a scene and she said, "It's never a big deal to you Damon, and thank you, thank you for allowing me not to do magic on this trip," She said, bowing to him like he was granting her the privilege, "Those girls were witches and look at what happened to them. I tell you I don't want that for myself and you act like I should still want to wave a magical wand and make it all better, but what gets me, "she said, stepping up to him, toe to toe, head thrown back to confront him towering over her, "Is you, no, not just you, everyone, **expects** it, but you all don't know what it takes out of me, "She said, before she hastily exited out the restaurant diner.

He had thrown a couple of bills on the table, not bothering for his change and ran after her. They couldn't let the other have the last word, and he yelled, "Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you," out the diner door and in the car, when he saw she had her lips pursed together and her arms folded, he told her he wasn't going to drive twelve hours to Florida with her giving him the silent treatment.

"Judgy." He says his term of endearment for her gently, soothing, because he's feeling guilty that he had always expected her on the frontline and never considered what being her friends' magical guardian had taken from her. And he won't start the car until she answers him. The car keys are in his lap, and his cellphone is vibrating against his leg, but he won't make a move until Bonnie says something. He doesn't like the silent treatment. He prefers her excited and riled up, telling him off and confessing truths about herself he hadn't known, so he can pick those truths up out of the carnage and wipe them clean to keep inside of him.

He'll keep all of her truths if she needs him too, that's what friends are supposed to do, right? Keep your friend's shit safe for them and give them back to them when they need it.

_Bonnie was in her crib, pointing out the yellow ducks that decorated her blanket and jabbering, trying to make out the sounds her mother said to her through-out each day. She looked up to see her father, hovering over the railing with his tie loosened and flipped over his shoulder. He picked her up to cradle her in his arms and to stare into her green eyes. Her dimpled hands reached for his cheek, the rich color of a chocolate bar, and he nuzzled her, whispering, "You saved Daddy today, do you know that baby girl?"_

"I owe you an apology, Bonnie, for treating you like a means to an end," He says, his voice earnest and deep, earning a green-eyed stare, and he adds with a purposeful gentleness, "I've been around witches for over a century, and for reasons due to my own bullshit, I haven't treated people with such gifts as equals. Witches are beneficial to vamps, and their magic has always been a practical necessity for me, a weapon I was taught to keep in my back pocket," He looks at her, expecting her to start the raging, but she's quiet and he continues, "But your magic is much more than just a shield to save our asses, Bonnie, it can and I'm sure it will be so much more for you when you learn to use it for yourself, because I know you are smart enough to tell that just because you wanna be done with magic, doesn't mean magic is done with you."

They are both surprised by his candidness, and he's apprehensive about admitting to her about his using of witches, it wasn't like it was a secret though, she could be testament to that, but he wants to reveal more, that it hadn't always been that way, that before vampirism, and Katherine, and the war and the death of his mother, Damon believed in magic. He believed it whenever he caught a silvery-rainbow scaled trout on his hook when he didn't have any bait because he had promised the river he would share whatever he caught; he believed in magic when he would make shadows into animals on the wall for Stefan by the gas lamp, and he would tell Stefan to close his eyes and wish for the shadow bird to fly, and the flat shadow would flutter and take flight, and he believed it whenever his mother stopped by his room before bed and made him recite the lord's prayer with her, and the line, 'we forgive them that trespass against us," was the spell that would beseech him to let go of the days' anger with his father.

Magic was all around him as a child, fascinating and keeping him, and he assumed that magic, that kind of beautiful enchantment was forever lost for him.

Until Bonnie.

"Are we good?" He asks, pulling a response from her, and she nods and he masks a sigh of relief in an eye roll and starts the car.

And instead of acknowledging all of what he has said, she says, "I need you to take me to see someone before we leave here."

"Who?" He smirks, disbelieving she knows anyone in Nokesville.

But she's ignoring his question and giving him directions, "Keep down this road for three miles and stop when you see an ugly yellow mailbox with a metal rooster on it."

He obliges, hauling them down the highway, taking Bonnie where she requests, as the road leads them through the woods of where girls have died by the fangs of vampires and he slows down once he sees the hideous Rooster, and pulls over onto the grass on the side of the road, and she is opening the door, asking him to wait here for her.

"Like hell, Bennett. After what happened in these woods and you refusing to play your part, I'm coming with you," He says, peering down the dirt path to a non-descript brown wooden house at the end.

She stuffs her hands in pockets, her self-assurance fading into a timidity he's not accustomed to. "I can take care of myself, "she says, heading down the pathway to the one-story home with the sagging roof and barren garden out front.

The house looks abandoned.

He follows her, the cold air becoming denser, and carrying the stench of decayed flowers and crops as they draw closer to the home, and Damon's gums itch when he catches a whiff of blood, along with the scent of a vampire.

He zips to Bonnie, grabbing her, ensuring her safety between his hands, while he sniffs the air, and growls through his fangs, "Who lives here, Bennett?"

"My mom," she answers, but her heart sinks when she doesn't see Abby's pick-up truck, but with the state of her garden and home, she doesn't know what might have happened to the truck, so she goes up the stairs and knocks on the door, and makes a face at Damon, because he looks irritated, and she thinks it's probably because he thinks they should be in North Caroline by now, and when her knock goes unanswered she sadly descends the stairs, "Wasted trip, she's not here."

Damon can hear Abby moving in the house, just like she can hear her daughter at the door, and he squints, thinking if he should tell Bonnie or save her the trouble of this woman by lying and confirming to her she's not at home, but Bonnie deserves the truth, no matter how it might hurt, and he looks around at the sad appearance of the house and the land, and he nods his head toward the door, "She's in there," he says, hoping exposing Abby will make her come to the door. For Bonnie.

Bonnie eyes widen, and a small sound comes out of her mouth, and she turns on her heels and up the porch and knocks another time, "Abby, are you okay?" She yells, wondering why she won't come to the door, and she looks over Damon and thinks about yet again she brings the witches' killer to the witch, and she spits, "It's you, you're the reason why she won't come to the door."

"I'll leave when she answers the door." He shakes his head and curses Abby under his breath, as the sound of Bonnie begging her mother to come to door makes his blood run colder than it already does.

_Bonnie tugged at the frilly white lace at her neck as she sat cross-legged on the cushioned settee in the bay window. The dress was pastel pink with a dropped-waist and had tiny pink and white flowers lining the hem of the dress, it was only to be worn for special occasions, recitals and Easter, and today her Dad had laid it out on her bed, and said her Mom was coming for dinner. _

"_You shouldn't have told her she was coming."_

"_She said she wouldn't do that to Bonnie again."_

_The adults lowered their voice but Bonnie could still hear them._

"_I'm her mama and I know my daughter and she isn't coming. I love her but I'm not gonna keep up a false hope she changed and let her hurt Bonnie. I know you love her, you want her to come home, but she ain't coming home."_

_Bonnie picked at a hole in her thick white stockings, and repeated the words her mother had taught her when she was a baby._

_The hole spread, ripping the stocking up her leg, and she could hear her Grams screaming, her father shouting and then his strong arms scooping her up in his arms as he rushed her out of the house._

_She had set the living room curtains on fire, and it burned around her, while she sat under the fiery valance untouched and repeating words._

_Her father shook her on the lawn, scared, and kissing the top of her head, he said, "It took your mom away from me and I'm not gonna let it take you too."_

Feeling helpless because Damon won't leave and Abby won't come, she beats on the door and says, "He'll stay outside Abby, I only came to make sure you were okay, please come to the door, " she says, over and over, and through the please, please, please, she is remembering a childhood that isn't hers, she is desperate over a mother who doted on her, who tucked her in at night and read her stories and recited prayers, and she's embarrassed because the mother inside is not that woman, even though growing up she kept giving her the chance to be.

"Forget about her, Bonnie."

But she's watching her hand as if it has a mind of its own, continue to knock, continue to hope, and she knows she should go, but there is this anger, fifteen years of anger, and its massive and searing red, and its splitting open organs like her heart as it drags up and out her mouth, and she yells while she beats at the door, "I needed you, I was only a baby, and you left your mama to raise me," she's kicking the door along with her beating fist, "She had to teach me, it should have been you Abby, do you hear me, it should have been you," she's rambling, words she thought she would never say, they are all gushing out, and the thought of her being inside the house and hearing her and still refusing to come to the door, brings up the missing her, the missed birthdays, and all those times when a girl just needed her mother. "You are worthless," she says, when she is conscious of a hand on her neck, kneading at her nape, and tugging at her to wrap her in his arms and whispering in her ear, "Let it go, Bon, let it go."

Damon brushes his mouth over her forehead, his lips pressed against her brow, "Don't let this takeover, Bon," He says, thinking she needed to cry and for some reason he wanted to be the one for her to need to cry to.

But she shrugs him off of her, because there are no tears left in her for Abby, she only came to her because she was her last link to magic.

And her mother had proven to be as valuable to her life as magic had been.

When he asks if she is okay, she nods and adjusts her coat, smoothing her hands over the lapels and flipping the collar up to protect herself from the cold wind and hops off the porch with ease, "I'm done with her too."

Damon lingers on the porch as his eyes follow the witch making fast progress to the car, and he takes the steps down the porch, and walks down the path, and looks back at the house and sees the outline of Abby's face behind the curtain, watching her daughter leave.

Author's Note

Thank you all so much for reading and letting me know how I'm doing here. I appreciate it a lot


	10. Chapter 10

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"_The prodigal son has returned," She said, giggling, but it was never girlish, or innocent, there was an ever-present hint of malice in her teasing, "The entire town is gossiping about your exploits," she clicked her tongue in disapproval. She was in his room, the afternoon light shimmering over green watered silk, olive skin, and lustrous dark curls. Katherine was seduction. And he hadn't seen her since he rode off to war with her name on his heart, but he had changed, and he was not the naive young man she had entranced months before, and he bit into his bottom lip and pulled her to his bed and rolled on top of her, nuzzling her neck, he said, "You never wrote."_

_And he entangled her in his arms and she slapped him playfully, arousing him, making him hiss with pleasure and bite the exposed tops of her breasts._

"_No, Mr. Salvatore, I can't sully my good name with you, "She smiled, pushing him from her, and rising from his bed, brushing off the wrinkles in her dress, "Your brother and I are riding today, it may behoove you to wash, and dress, and accompany us. Missy has packed a picnic and we are to dine by the river."_

_He smirked, hands behind his head, "My brother does it for you, I see, well you two have fun, I intend to pass this glorious afternoon drinking, but a town over, as I do not wish to sully you or my family's name any more than I already have I suspect, while my brother fumbles and fawns over you by the river." He said, wondering why Stefan had rescued him from the whorehouse, he hadn't wanted to be rescued, what he wanted was to drown in bourbon and bury himself in between the whore's legs. _

_Katherine giggled once more, and once more it was vicious, and she bent over him, and said, "If you are looking for death, Damon, you are looking in the wrong place," She whispered and kissed him square on the lips._

Damon nudges Bonnie from her sleep, and she stretches in the car and looks at the neon 'Motel' sign with the busted 'e', and the well-lit 'No Vacancy' sign, and she grimaces and asks him how long she's been asleep.

"You've been snoring since Savannah," he says, snapping his fingers for her to get out the car so he could negotiate a room.

There is no room at the inn; well, there is room; but instead of a filthy manger shared with livestock, the only vacancy the 'Sunshine Motel' has available is their world-class honeymoon suite. The motel owner brags behind the plexiglass, in his thick Gujarati accent, that this room is spectacular, it has a heart-shaped bed and a jacuzzi tub for two and he can rent it to them at the best price in town.

"We'll take it," Damon says, sliding cold hard cash under the glass.

He lugs the duffle bag behind Bonnie who is dragging her feet like she is walking to her death sentence. She is only carrying her coat; she had took it off as soon as she opened the car door in Florida. Winter is warmer there, it's not exactly bikini weather but she can stroll around in a light sweater and not freeze.

"Really? The honeymoon suite? Are you sure we can't look for another motel?" She gripes for the fifth time since he has paid the 60 bucks for the room. She's pretty sure the honeymoon suite won't have double beds, and she's exhausted, and had hoped Damon would take off to the nearest college bar to drink, and she could have the room to herself for a while and take a shower without him right outside the door, and zone out to bad television, and after she's distracted herself with a B movie, she would just be still and stare at the ceiling for a while, and try not to think about how she is unraveling.

Damon is thoroughly delighted by her being uncomfortable, "This is the nearest place to campus and we have to be up bright and early to meet with the Professor," He reminds her as they pass under the bug-encrusted globe lamps, blinking from a shortage, in between each room.

The motel room doors are made of metal and at some point were once painted orange, and face the pot-hole riddled parking lot. Damon dangles the room key in her face, which is an actual key with a pink rabbits foot keychain attached. Bonnie frowns as they stand on the concrete landing outside the room door with the brass curvy numbers tacked under the peephole.

He turns the key in the lock and flings the door back and Bonnie peeks her head in without setting foot into the room, and it confirms all of her fears.

"Sweet," Damon whistles as he throws the bag on the floor and flicks on the nearest light switch, which turns on a light show projection of multi-colored hearts revolving slowly around the room.

Bonnie hasn't budge and Damon glances back at her, "Are you waiting for me to carry you in?" He jokes, which earns him a horrified look.

Her eyes widen at what his joke implies and how her effort to forget that someone actually thought she was married to him has been a waste. She huffs and says, "We are getting a room at another motel, tomorrow," She stresses as her mouth downturns at the sight of one bed.

Damon is unzipping his bag and pulling out his provisions he had picked up when they stopped for dinner in Savanah: 2 emergency bottles of bourbon, a pack of cards, and red licorice.

Bonnie slouches down on the corner of the heart-shaped bed and turns her nose up at her surroundings. In the far left corner is the aforementioned jacuzzi tub sunken into the floor, and she assumes what makes the motel owner call his room spectacular is because the tub is the same god-awful shape as the bed and is colored red. As a matter of fact, the entire room is decorated in the hues of pink and red and the walls are padded in faux leather, _pleather?_ There is a shiny- finger smudged pole in the adjacent corner, complete with two paneled floor to ceiling mirrors. Bonnie rubs her feet into the brown shag carpet which she is sure houses millions of germs and maybe lost razor blades and looks around at the cheap furniture that is speckled with what she hopes are just cigarette burns and warp marks from water rings. The room even smells cheap, like the saccharine artificial strawberry scent of a car freshener and Bonnie thinks she might have to sleep in the car.

Damon looks right at home as he takes swigs of his bourbon from the bottle and flicks through cable stations on the large flat screen. "I wouldn't sit on that bedspread if I were you," He advises not missing a beat between swigs and channel-surfing.

She sprints off the bedding and looks back at her ass, fearing she might have some disgusting muck on the seat and then she will have to borrow a lighter from their next door neighbors to set her pants on fire in the bathtub.

He laughs, taking the top comforter off and throwing it in a heap on the floor," "You've never been to a motel, Bennett?" He asks with raised eyebrows, his question clearly snooping for more of her sexual history.

She couldn't look more indignant at his question if she tried," No, Damon, I'm not you, I don't spend most of my time entertaining skanks in rat-holes," She says, jutting out her chin with a hand on her hip. "I can't believe you aren't skeeved out by this place," She adds, sitting down uneasily in a chair.

"It has its charm," He says and she cuts her eyes at him. He is amused by her leg bouncing and her lip biting and he can understand why she thinks he would not be a fan of the motel room. But he has sliding scale taste; he knows the difference between refined and trash and he loves things based on mood, and he has spent at least two of Bonnie's lifetimes in seedy motel rooms and being in one presently makes him think of naked limbs and swollen lips and the racy scent of sex. He searches for pajama bottoms in his bag, "Sometimes you want slow-dancing and candlelight and sometimes you want spread-eagle and the lights on," He drawls, his voice low and provoking.

Her neck warms and her tongue thickens, but she manages to say in a wavering tone, "I think most girls prefer the slow-dancing and candle-light."

His upper lip lifts into a smirk at her assumption because he gets Bonnie is used to touching life with gloves on, but he has a notion, with his blood running through her, that will soon change. So far, the bond has been making them both double take on who they are since consuming each other's blood, it was only a matter of time he laments, that he will be reprimanding people for having fun, like a power-drunk hall monitor, while she wore leather jackets, drank too much and hooked up with frat boys, and he scowls at the thought of him being a lame, but even more so at the thought of Bonnie hooking up with frat boys, or boys period. He shakes off the odd pang, and asks, "You wanna shower first?" gathering his toiletries from the bag, "I like to take long showers, so it's probably best if you go first," He looks over at her and she lifts one shoulder to show she doesn't care.

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Bonnie twists the grey knob on the electrical pad on the wall by the bed and the bed rattles and shakes and cries like it's about to die.

"Magic fingers," She whispers to herself in awe because she has only seen a vibrating bed in movies. She hopes it will stop its magic soon because she is tired and wants to lie down and read one of Damon's books about secret societies.

The bed stops wriggling and she kicks off her shoes, but keeps her socks on as she rolls on to her side with her hands under her face.

She sighs, deeply, and closes her eyes.

It has been a long day.

Scratch that, it has been a long week.

And she wants to forget, namely the parts: where she cast an accidental blood bond with her frenemy, fought with her best friend, discovered werewolves and vampires are trying to exterminate witches, and where she told off her absentee mother, and she winces at remembering, giving herself more than enough anxiety then she can handle, and she opens her eyes and spies the bourbon bottle on the table.

Damon has been in the shower over thirty minutes and she wonders what else he could possibly have left to clean when her phone rings. She tip-toes off the bed and rummages through her hand bag until she sees Caroline's name.

The phone buzzes in her closed hands and she glances at the bathroom door, listening to the water beating against the plastic, and she slinks towards the front door with the phone in her hand, and tells her self if it is still ringing by the time she is outside and by the coke machines they passed up on the way to the room then she will answer it.

Caroline doesn't let up as Bonnie leans against the cool brick in the hallway, all alone with the hum of the old beverage machine while staring at its cursive letters asking her to 'Enjoy Coke'.

"Yes?" She answers harshly, because she is still very sore despite not wanting to keep snubbing her friend.

There is a gasp from Caroline and then a mess of apologies and begging for forgiveness.

"You have every right to be upset, Bonnie but I want you to know that I love you and I made a mistake, I should have went to you about what was happening, but Elena had her reasons and I wanted to respect her decision, but .." She falters.

Bonnie lightly touches the '25 cent' slot of the machine, "But what?"

"I think we need to have a girl's night, just the three of us, and discuss us, we need to talk and bond like we used to do," She suggests, trying to sound more cheery about the idea.

Bonnie sulks at the word bond, and says, "Caroline, I..."There is silence as Bonnie contemplates if she is ready to forgive and she can feel that welling in her throat, "What time is good for you two?" She asks instead of telling them all to go to hell which is her initial reaction to the invitation but she realizes, especially after this morning that her gut responses don't exactly belong to just her right now. They are shared with 'One Who Takes Epic Showers".

Bonnie can hear Caroline smile over the phone and the gesture makes her do the same in the hallway.

"How's tomorrow, I'll order pizza."

"Tomorrow won't work, I'm um, I'm at Lucy's right now and won't be back till Monday," She lies.

"You're gonna miss another day of school?"

"Yeah, which reminds me I will need your notes from history," She says easily diverting the conversation from her whereabouts.

They say their good-byes and although Bonnie believes she made a Bonnie-like decision in taking a step in the direction toward mending her relationship with her best friends, she can't get rid of the sense that she sold her self out and it makes her want a drink badly.

She goes back into the room to discover, **lo and behold**, Damon is still in the shower.

Grabbing the opened bottle on the table, she takes two full mouth gulps, until it burns her throat and suppresses the knot that was stuck there. She wipes her mouth before screwing the cap back on. She tugs at the elastic band around her hair, and shakes her curls, letting her hair fall over her shoulders as she massages her scalp. She lounges in the pleather chair and kicks her legs up and mutters to herself, "Fuck this, I wanna have some fun," because she believes with a locked bathroom door, then she's all alone.

But steam billows out the bathroom, and the vampire sidles up behind her, water from his chin dripping onto her as he takes the bottle from her hands and says before taking a swig, "Then you should have showered with me."

Author's Note

You guys are freaking awesome! Thank you to Mrs. Anitra, Leni18, Babyshan211, Alexis, Voicegrl, GrazielaL, Cinnamonkiss. I appreciate each and every one of you


	11. Chapter 11

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Droplets of water fall on her wrist, moisten her hair, and stain her purple sweater dark blue. And she inhales manly cologne, arousing and heady, it intoxicates her, makes her pulse quicken, and he comes from around her, swaggering around the room, gripping the bourbon bottle in one hand, and clenching a low-slung towel at his hips.

Gently pressing her thumb on the bead of water at her wrist, she rubs the liquid into her skin, eyes downcast because she is taken aback by his suggestion, and briefly pondering if he actually meant it, but figuring he must have been trying to pluck at her nerves because she's seen the lure of the girls Damon prefers, and she's not anything like those girls, and knowing this makes her self-conscious, and she tugs at her sleeves and pulls her knees up to her chin, reprimanding herself for allowing Damon to make her feel this way, and she mentally pulls out her scorecard and runs down his list, reminding herself of what he did to Caroline, and how cruel he can really be, and of his predatory pursuit of Elena, and that he didn't think twice to snap Abby's neck, and Jeremy's, and she half-heartedly checks off all of his cons because that's is what she normally does when she is confused by him.

He checks his phone, "We got an hour to last call," he shakes his head, his body still giving off steam, and his raven-colored hair is slick with water, "Why didn't you say something earlier?" He glances up at her, his face serious.

Shrugging, and swishing her lips to the side, she's overwhelmed and stifled from constantly keeping score, and how she doesn't care about last calls, she wants to go out, anywhere, and find some fun, some _**distraction**_ from this week even if it is with Damon, "I thought it would be the last thing I would wanna do," She says, her eyes narrowing, fixated on the vampire.

And his mouth morphs from its reproaching hard line to a wide grin, "Finally" he says, smiling at her, and raising a brow, "The witch wants to play."

The way he says the word play makes her want to do just that as she takes in his carved upper body: the sharp lines, harsh angles, and alabaster skin. She recalls the last sleepover at Elena's where the girls gossiped about guys and sex, well mainly Elena and Caroline gossiped while she listened and interjected with the appropriate amount of glee at their romantic lives. The gossip turned to Damon, because as of late it always does. Elena talked about accidentally running into him out of the shower, which sparked Caroline to gag and for her to have to listen to the two go back and forth on his looks and then them all settling on him being handsome and then Elena disagreeing with them for saying her sweetheart's eyes were icecaps.

And Bonnie realizes she was wrong about his eyes.

She is positive the vampire has - ad nauseam- heard his eyes compared to every ocean and sea and even she instantly thinks his eyes resemble the sought-after waters displayed in travel brochures, but as she confronts his stare, she considers his eyes remind her of water, not because of the hue, but because of the way they transform and change, move with his moods, and how what may appear like shallow water can be the very water you drown in.

Bonnie averts her eyes, "Gimme twenty minutes," She says, hoping he saved her some hot water, "Where are we going?"

"I dunno, I'll think about it while you're in the shower, "he says, sitting on the bed with his bottle, running his hands into his hair, closing his eyes like her questioning exhausts him.

She digs through the duffle bag to get her make-up, deodorant, toothbrush, and toothpaste, and she can't find the toothpaste, so she pulls out all the items, and notices other things she forgot in her haste to pack because Damon was yelling at her from her living room about her taking forever to get ready.

She didn't have toothpaste or pajamas and when she tells this to Damon, he stands, and Bonnie is suddenly very conscious that she is in a honeymoon suite with a practically naked man, and he makes her nervous, and she thinks it wouldn't be a problem if he had used up all the hot water because what she needs is a cold shower, and she is aware of his balled fist holding the terry cloth right at the slender v of his waist, and she's honing in on the peek of muscular thigh as he walks over to the bag, and tells her it's not nice to stare as he hands her his Crest and the button-down satin top to his pajama bottom.

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Damon is not going to admit to Bonnie that he thinks they should stay in so she could get some rest because trouble is always waiting for them, and that since she's on her "Don't mention magic to me" kick, inform her that he's working for two, and although he's seen plenty of dead bodies, and he won't go into how many of those bodies were because of his doing because it won't contribute anything to his argument, and instead say that witnessing how the death of the witches affected her, makes him want to hold off their party until they are back in Mystic, at least there if trouble pops off they are on home territory and he can call up for help if they need it.

And he's repulsed in himself for thinking like such a pansy for he's never been one to worry, and he has especially never ever, ever, ever, been one to pass up a good time, and as he flips his cell phone in the air and catches it, lounging on the bed, anticipating Bonnie to emerge from the bathroom in some dull brown cardigan set, hair tied up in a demure ballerina knot, fumbling as she tries to articulate what kind of fun she wants to have, he doesn't notice the witch has exited the bathroom without fanfare and is slipping on the black suede high-heeled booties he had packed because he was astonished she had owned a pair of shoes that weren't Converses.

"You're not dressed," She frowns.

He didn't dress because he's a man and it takes him five minutes top to dress, and he thought she really would take the entire twenty minutes to put herself together, but he wishes he had dressed while she was still in the shower because he doesn't believe the white towel wrapped around his waist is doing much to mask that 90 percent of the blood in his body has rushed to his lower half at the sight of Bonnie Bennett.

That black strapless dress she complained she couldn't wear anymore was snug over her violin curves, the thick cotton/rayon blend pulling across her breast and hips, and stopping mid-thigh, and although it covers all her appealing parts, it clings to her like she is naked, and Damon can't help adjusting the knot holding his towel and smirking, "Didn't someone tell me earlier that if I thought she'd wear that dress then I had her confused?"

She has her back to him, bent over as she wiggles her foot into the boot, and the dress raises up to where his imagination runs off to a place where they both agree to forget she's a witch who sometimes hates him, and he's a vampire who isn't in love with her best friend, and since they are in a honeymoon suite, they agree to pretend they are married, and since they are doing all of this forgetting and pretending, he wouldn't feel weird about wanting to her to stay bent over just as she is presently, and wrapping his hand into her hair that is down and flowing, and trailing his fingers over toned calves, silken thighs and up and under her dress, and explore how bonded are they.

Flipping her hair back, her hand holding back the riot of brassy curls, she says, "I said to school Damon," She says, grabbing her purse, "If you don't wanna go, I can go without you, just gimme your keys," She orders through glossy painted lips.

And for a split second Damon remembers he had a case to make, something about partying with trouble and how they should wait until they are back in Mystic Falls, at his place, in his room, where she can do her magic.

Damon makes a face at her, "You think you can handle my car?"

"Like a charm," She smiles confidently with a hand on her jutted hip.

And Damon wonders what the hell happened to her in that shower because he is used to a Bonnie who awkwardly shrinks in his dubious flirtation, he doesn't know how to respond to a Bonnie who matches his advances as in a dare to do more than flirt.

He can't think of anything clever so he reaches for his keys on the nightstand and tosses them to her and she catches them with ease and turns on her heels, strutting to the door, determined to go out into the night and satiate her new craving for the unknown.

But before her hand closes around the doorknob, he clears his throat and his bare chest is pushed against her back, her shoulder blades flush against his cool skin, and he's lost the towel somewhere between the bed and the door, and he has one long arm over her head, pressed against the metal, keeping her from leaving, and he says, "I'll let you drive, Bennett, but you aren't going anywhere without me."

Author's Note

With school starting and my new job, my life has been busy busy busy. But I had some time this Sunday to write and wanted to post up something for Bamon week I hope you guys like it, I'll post up more soon.

This chapter was fun for me to write and from here on out I like that I get to write Bonnie becoming Damon and vice versa

Love you guys, thanks for giving me a reason to write.


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